The Blackest Hour Before Dawn
by Carumati
Summary: Discontinued. Eventual Kakasaku. She had to grow first and patch up her broken life, and he... well, he needed to be healed. They had each other, it's enough right? This is love, years in the making.
1. Of the Mind of Man

Sakura wasn't really sure what people thought of her- the last person on her team to remain in Konoha

**Author Notes... it's slightly AU.**

"_**It's TEAMWORK."- Kakashi Hatake**_

Team 7 was disbanded and in her mind- gone, forever.

Forever seemed to be such a strong word.

It sucks up all hope and leaves you dry, barren, and empty.

Dry.

Barren.

Empty.

But never alone, she would never feel alone.

**Chapter 1... Of the Mind of Man**

Sakura heard the sounds of birds chirping. She turned her head slightly to the open window and stared at the semi-darkness outside while she thought, '_It's been a long time since Sasuke left.'_ She drew her knees to her chest and wondered whether there will be any roosters today greeting the first rays of sun. '_It's been a long time since the mission to bring him back failed.'_ Usually, it was just Naruto and sometimes Lee, trying to imitate the birds and annoying the hell out of most of the villagers of Konohagakure. A giggle escaped her lips as she remembered throwing her alarm clock with deadly accuracy at him for disrupting her really fragile beauty sleep.

Back then, she was so pissed off at him…

"Naruto! Baka! Do you know what time it is?!" She had shrieked.

The alarm clocked had bounced off his face with a loud smack, "Ow! Sakura-chan!" Sakura, in all her glorious bed hair and circles under her eyes, was about to hurl her kunai and spare shuriken at him when Lee intervened.

"Yosh! Sakura chan! Is today not a lovely day! Get up early and embrace your life that is full of youthfulness!" He did his trademark thumbs-up and signature teeth-flash. Sakura watched him in amazement as his background suddenly was full of flower petals and mini- Maito Guys doing jumping jacks.

But then, the background faded behind him to reveal an astonishing sky full of pastel colors... It was so pretty. She saw Naruto and Lee exchanged knowing glances…

Snapping out of her reverie, Sakura let her head lean against her pillow and she smiled. After that day, every morning, she would sit with her two ninja friends, on her roof, and enjoy the scenery. "Greet the new day!" Naruto would exclaim. "Today, I'll get stronger, Dattebayo!" His background was full of happy faces and hands making victory signs.

Those two boys were rubbing off of each other. It's a really scary reality.

Soon after, Lee went on a solo B-class, bordering on A-class, mission. The new Hokage said that he'll be gone for three days. Sakura was ok with that, since she knew that she would see him again. But with Naruto, well, that was a different story.

Naruto. She frowned.

Naruto left. He'll be gone for a really long time.

There will be no one to greet the morning.

She remembered yesterday; Naruto's happy, whiskered face, naturally unruly hair, and outrageous, orange jumpsuit. She saw him heading toward the gates of the city when she yelled at him to stop. It was only when she noticed his stuffed backpack that she asked, "Naruto-kun, are you leaving too?" _'Along with everybody I know?' _She willed herself not to cry.

Naruto looked at her with a guilty face. "Sorry Sakura-chan, I'm..." He scratched the back of his head nervously.

Sakura folded her arms, "You are leaving." She accused him. _'Stupid,_' Inner Sakura thought, _'They all leave at one point or the other.'_

Naruto shuffled around, "I'm the new apprentice for Ero-sennin." _'Jiraiya san.'_ "I'll be training under him."

"For how long?"

"Neh... uhh... Three years?"

Sakura was stunned. They were all twelve years old. By the time Naruto comes back, they'll all be teenagers. Three years was a really long time. "Ma, Sakura chan? Are you still there?" Sakura snapped out of her thoughts. "I'm not going on this trip to leave you Sakura chan." Naruto tried to explain, "I'll become stronger, strong enough to bring back Sasuke!" Sakura felt her eyes burn as Naruto continued on his passionate speech. "And then, I'll become Hokage, the best Hokage people will ever see!"

Sakura shook her head in amusement, he still have goals and dreams he can aspire to be. _'What will I be? Where will I be?'_ She wondered to herself. She started laughing, the type of laugh where one tilts her head down with her eyes closed and her hands trying to cover her mirth.

"Sakura?"

The koinichi's laughter suddenly did a one-eighty in front of Naruto as her tears of joy suddenly became tears of sorrow.

"Sakura!" Sakura looked at her blond friend and quickly wiped away her tears. Sniffling, she wondered whether she had the strength to hug him good-bye before bawling her eyes out. The two awkwardly stood there for another two minutes before Sakura interrupted the silence, but not before sniffing again.

"I- I wish that I had known you better." He understood.

"I'm sorry too. Lee will be joining you sooner or later. Oh yeah," Naruto paused, "watch out for the clouds and sun on people's clothing, eat better, and sleep more! Well, I'll come back! Just you wait, Dattebayo!" And he was gone; she watched his back as he walked away from her life, just like that. '_Clouds and the sun on clothing is a bad thing'? _She thought. '_Eat and sleep… I do that right?_'

"You better come back or else!" Sakura yelled out. Inner Sakura fumed, _'I'll kick his ass when he comes back anyways!'_

Sakura shook out her daydream and got up from her bed. She stretched and paddled her way to the bathroom to clean up, and then to her closet to pick her attire for her day. She wondered whether she should wear something different for a change. It seemed like everyday, she wore that Chinese dress outfit and shorts; she could do with a change.

It's all Naruto's fault. Sakura saw in his blue eyes clear determination and ambition. She was struck by the power and she thought that she, herself, should improve with something. She suddenly felt that her previous twelve years in life were all meaningless and, she felt guilty over wasted time.

'_To become stronger.'_ She thought as she thrust her right fist into the air, then immediately let her hand fall limp. _'Lee is rubbing off of me too!'_ A horrified thought came to her.

She looked at herself in the mirror at the closet door, silently observing her features. _'Yellow'_, she thought. _'She ought to wear something yellow, just for today. To change.'_

She looked nervously at her bedroom door, "I'll do that," she muttered, "As soon as I find a way to sneak past my parents."

She yawned again, still half asleep.

"_**Me and Sasuke? Nah, I set myself on different sights now. Sakura-chan, what do you think of Shikamaru? ...Should I call him Shika-chan? Or Shika-kun? Or Shikamaru-kun? Is it kinky to call him Shika-sama...?"-Ino Yamanaka**_

The blond female ninja wasn't really sure what prompted her self to open her eyes as she laid on her side, facing her window. But she did. Ino looked at one of the rooftops of Konoha and blinked. Why was Sakura Haruno awake at six in the morning? A few minutes later, Ino joined her friend. "Forehead? Are you nuts? And..." She rubbed her eyes, "Are you wearing something different?"

Sakura, wearing a regular yellow t-shirt and comfortable slacks, looked up at her friend and smiled, "I'm sure you know that Ino-pig, I love your skills at observing people."

Ino stared at her friend and ignored the jibe, "Sakura chan, are you ok?" There was no reply. Ino yawned and decided to join her despite her still being half asleep.

"It's so pretty!" Sakura happily exclaimed, "I've been going up here everyday! Earlier if I must." Ino mentally groaned. "Naruto and Lee usually join me, but since they're..." The blond koinichi looked at her through bleary eyes and groaned aloud.

_But since they're gone, can you stay by?_

It was quite nice to be out here, Ino admitted to herself. Most of the village people were still asleep, the ANBU ninjas were quiet with their patrols, and the birds were chirping some songs. The sky was like a canvas, full of yellow, pink, red, and purple colors with an occasional cloud.

'Yeah,' Ino thought, 'I could get used to this.'

Sakura's smile increased tenfold as she enveloped her companion with a hug. Sakura was hesitant, "Uhh, Ino, does this mean that we're friends?"

Ino huffed, "Remember the Chunin Exams?" She made a gesture with her hands as Sakura absentmindedly touched her pink locks.

The pink haired girl remembered. When Sakura was fighting in the Forest of Death, she had to use her kunai to hack away at her hair to escape and to survive. They both knew that Sasuke had a thing for girls with long hair. It was an unspoken announcement that she no longer viewed the affections of Sasuke as important to her. Later, at the preliminaries, Ino sliced through her own hair as a symbol of a dead crush, and to try and imprison Sakura in her jutsu, but the two knew how that had ended.

When Sasuke betrayed his home town, Sakura tried to help him by confessing her love for him, only to be turned down cruelly. She winced at the memory, but Ino took no notice. Don't nice people finish first?

"Something's different about you forehead girl." Ino remarked.

Sakura let her gaze wander over to her old-new friend and grinned, "My hair is so short you've probably seen me scratch my neck a couple of ti-" Her sentence trailed off into the wind surrounding them. She yawned and rubbed her heavy eyelids.

"Hello? Forehead?" Sakura's dazed look snapped back to attention. "You're there right? Good." Ino nodded in assurance to herself. "If you want to, I guess, get stronger, I'll help. Just call me when you want to, between team meetings and stuff. But right now, I have to go meet with Shikamaru for something ok?"

Ino turned back when she was at the edge and saw Sakura's chin fall onto her arms. The sun was almost above the buildings, casting a long shadow behind her.

"Ok." Sakura whispered.

"_**Hey! Let's have a Ramen Contest! I know all the names of all the 873 different types of Ramen! ...Where is everyone?"- Naruto Uzumaki**_

The first thing Sakura would need to do is to figure out how in the world she could become a better ninja... koinichi. It was obvious to her that she was the weakest of her team. Kakashi-sensei is of course, her senior. But, Sasuke Uchiha was the lone survivor of the Uchiha massacre and he wielded the infamous Sharingan and Naruto Uzumaki was the Kyuubi container.

Her sleepy mind drifted off again to Naruto.

'_What I don't get'_ Sakura thought sourly, _'Is how the villagers are so cruel to him. No wonder he loves the Ramen stand. Only Ayame-san and her dad were nice to him.'_ She couldn't get her mind around it: Naruto was supposed to be a hero. A hero he is not, at least to these ungrateful villagers.

(She admitted to being a hypocrite, but she, unlike the town civilians, matured.) _'When he gets back,_' Sakura thought, '_I'll be sure to welcome him with open arms!'_

'_And a kick in the ass that'll send him flying through a hospital window.' _Inner Sakura gleefully added. She eyed her short hair and sighed, still not used to the strands brushing against her neck. _'Itchy, it's all effing itchy,'_ Inner Sakura complained.

She went back to the thought of being the weakest link out of Team 7 and winced. Thinking back to all her memories, she realized that she needs to improve on everything except genjutsu... But, Kakashi-sensei once told her that she has a gift in chakra control and suggested on her to take advantage of her talent. Chakra control: the only true gift that she has as a ninja, a gift that offers unique advantages such as keeping precise chakra release, letting any use of genjutsu or ninjutsu last longer than usual. But that was it for the uses.

'_Huh.'_

Sakura frowned. Kaka-sensei was also gone on an S-class solo mission. She felt pity for her sensei, the one he had the most hopes for, Sasuke, betrayed the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Kakashi even taught Sasuke his secret technique Chidori, the Copy-nin's single personally developed jutsu.

Kakashi, more or less, got stabbed in the back. The new Hokage gave him a break/ mission, told him that while he's gone, he might as well enjoy the new scenery of the Land of Water, Mizu no Kuni. _'Lucky,_' Inner Sakura sourly thought, '_I bet he's either on the beach reading Icha Icha Paradise or on the beach with an armful of big-chested women cooing over him reading Icha Icha Paradise._'

Sakura couldn't really tell the difference.

The tree that she was sitting on slightly shifted. In an instant, she was on her feet, alert with a kunai in her hand. Was somebody following her? She isn't good with sensing other chakra signatures around her. God, she was still only a Genin, having failed her Chunin exams previously. The chances of her defending herself against any attack successfully are slim, very slim.

One minute of dead quietness passed. Sakura cursed to herself, she knew that she shouldn't have chosen to sit at a place so near the border of the village. There were a whole lot more missing-nins and hostile foreign shinobis now that Orochimaru and the Akatsuki have finally, officially, came out into the open.

After another few minutes of tension, Sakura loosened her grip on her weapon and adapted to a slightly less hostile pose. '_I might just be over reacting, with both of my teammates and my teacher gone, I just feel slightly… vulnerable. Yeah, that's it._' She made herself scarce by hiding in the top of the trees, between the leaves. _'Bad Sakura, you can't be that paranoid can you?'_

An unwelcomed memory came into her head. Back at the Academy, when they were still learning ninja rules and ninja codes of honor, Iruka-sensei taught them ninja rule number 703, "A ninja must always be on the balls of their feet" and ninja rule number 1038, "A ninja must always have constant awareness over their surroundings." Granted Sakura didn't learn those stupid rules word by word, but those were the basic jists. Inner Sakura rolled her eyes, _'Damn ninja rule makers are so anal.'_

She heard footsteps. Her musings were gone in a puff of smoke.

Someone's coming. This is bad. What if it was Orochimaru: the person who killed the third Hokage or Kabuto: the traitor? The sounds of footsteps got closer and closer as Sakura tried to control her breathing. Then, the noise disappeared and Sakura freaked out. _'Did they see us? Did they sense us? Oh hell, I knew we should've learned how to mask our chakra a long time ago.'_ Inner Sakura ranted. The stranger's chakra signature disappeared. Her hands gripped her weapon, and she would have to be careful though since she only has one and besides, who knows how powerful they are? Ally or Hostile?

'_Oh wait!'_ She smacked her head_, 'It could just be ANBU!'_ She dared to peek over her tree branch, saw nothing, and turned back around, _'Or maybe not. Don't risk it.' 'Ok, think. Are they good people or bad people? How can you tell?'_

She almost yelped when a squirrel landed in front of her.

'_T-that was close.' _The animal started to chatter and squeak._ 'Stupid squirrel, SHUT UP!' _Sakura shushed the creature, only encouraging the dumb mammal to be louder. _'I swear I'll beat you up!'_ Inner Sakura growled.

And something happened.

Behind the squirrel a male ninja landed. She looked at his hitai-ate around his forehead that had a music note; she looked at his eyes that showed nothing; she looked at his hands that were shaking in anticipation. He had two katanas in each hand. She recognized him from the Chunin Exams, he was Yoroi Akado.

Honed lessons became instinctual with the training pounded into her by Kakashi- sensei. Sakura blinked, and then ran for her life, with the ninja behind her giving chase.

She concentrated some chakra to her feet, "Shunshin no Jutsu." She whispered.

Her side vision became a blur as her speed skyrocketed. The trees' leaves should try and deter her predator, she thought as she tried to make as little sound as possible, concentrating on how her feet landed and propelled off a branch silently as she darted forward. She can only move forward. Maybe, if the fates liked her, she can reach the village and scream for help, or loose her pursuer. _'Please, please, please, please, PLEASE don't get me killed.'_

"Hello, koinichi!" She heard a voice behind her hollering, "Slow down will you? My weapons are dying for a taste of female blood." Said koinichi paled considerably and urged the power in her feet to make her go faster. The ninja behind her was still shouting something, probably bad words, but she tuned him out, and concentrated. Akado sounded more insane than last time. It was a game of cat and mouse, and Sakura began to wonder whether she really was running away, out of the clutches of her captor. His voice was getting more and more distant by the second. Sakura grinned, despite her situation; chakra control was an excellent thing.

Hope seeped into her; maybe she can survive for another day.

And Murphy's Law began to work its magic.

Her sandals slipped on some moss and she faltered. Loosing her balance, she crashed headfirst onto the forest floor. _'A chunin would never make that mistake.'_ Before she could recover her breath, something sharp dug into the flesh of her back and through her ribs, maybe puncturing a lung. She let out a soft cry of pain. There was somebody breathing down her neck, "Pink hair. You're on Kakashi's team of genins." Sakura released a silent sobbed; she felt so helpless. "You're close with the Kyuubi container and that Uchiha. I might just take you as hostage, to demand them..." He chuckled and hissed, "But I'm not sure whether anybody would want you: the weakest of your non existent team."

The weakest of my non existent team... It was true wasn't it? But now, here, there's nobody to save her.

Numbly, Sakura wondered whether her life was flashing before her eyes, it's said to have happened to a great number of ninja who were about to die. Every mission that she was in: the Wave Country fiasco, the Chunin Exams, etc, every fight she has ever fought, the images were playing themselves out in her head, faster and faster... Her hands, underneath her stomach, began to do seals: Ram, Bear, Ox, Dog, Serpent, and activate.

"_**Sakura chan? We have some bad news…"- Mr. Haruno**_

It stung her as such an insult, the missing-nin saw that she stopped struggling and he grinned on the inside. Orochimaru-sama was right, he smirked to himself, the Haruno girl was too gullible, too easy to manipulate. He bet that with a few well-chosen words, he could have the girl willingly follow him out of Fire Country. Akado grinned, this game made up for the dumbass orders that Kabuto had given him in the Chunin Preliminaries: purposely loose to the Uchiha in a fight.

He mused: he could, if he felt like it, force the girl onto him. He didn't mind, no moral subconscious made him feel guilty. In fact, he relished in the feeling of control over another. He twisted his sword that was in the girl's back, the girl didn't make a sound.

He frowned, something was not right. She was too silent, and she felt too...

woody.

He looked down in disbelief and realized that he had stabbed a leafy log. Scratch that, in her wounded form, the koinichi managed to do a Kawarimi no Jutsu, a Body Replacement technique without him, an experienced ninja, noticing?! Yoroi Akado looked around, knowing that she was still here, as a genin, she still can't mask her chakra completely, and despite the nasty surprises she has been giving him, he knew that she was here, somewhere. No matter, he spotted her in the trees, clutching her wound that was on her stomach where the sword had pierced right through her stomach, her other hand twirling a kunai on a finger, and her eyes watching him warily.

Akado face made a sneer, "bitch," he hissed. "Are you challenging me?" He lunged toward her, and saw her make another set of hand seals for the Shunshin no Jutsu. He narrowed his eyes. 'This again?' He thought in exasperation. Never should he have underestimated her, her Body Flicker Technique, was faster than his. He flew past the trees like a bullet, "Useless bitch! Think you can escape me?! Get back here so I can feel your heart's blood!" He roared. "I'll fucking punish you and make you scream for mercy as soon as I'm done with you!"

He was furious. He couldn't use any of his chakra absorption techniques since they required direct contact and the koinichi would easily dodge his hands. He would just have to get closer to her and hold her down, but it was impossible. That stupid girl was unbelievably fast, he remembered Kabuto mentioning something about her incomprehensible chakra control. Kabuto said… The missing-nin forgot what his companion said.

"_**Bring her to me alive, Yoroi Akado, I want her alive."- Kabuto**_

'_For someone who is supposed to be an experienced shinobi, he's pretty dumb to not see through and yelled out, "AN ANBU is behind you!'_. Make no mistake, Sakura was positively terrified but Inner Sakura always made cynical remarks in the face of danger. The guy behind her was a different type of Akado than was she had seen, a more insane type.

Unpredictable, who knows what he can do…?

She was loosing her breath too. Her hand was on her wound, unconsciously sending her power, chakra, to try and hold the wound close. Her left lung and her critical back muscles were torn. Her chakra reserves were not like her teammates, she was tiring and she was slowing down. Nonetheless, in the mist of her own body-flicker technique, Sakura kept running.

Past the trees and shrubbery, she managed to see an ANBU border guard, a hawk mask, a katana strapped to his or her back. Relief flooded her as she stopped in front of the shinobi who was staring at her through an unreadable mask. She looked up, hand still on her wound, breathing deeply, and said, "There's a Sound ninja." She made a half hearted move with her hand, "He was right behind me and I think-."

Taka- san grabbed her and took her to a tree stump. The pink haired girl looked over the ANBU's shoulder; there were five kunais and a windmill shuriken where she had stood a second ago.

In the air, with her feet dangling above the ground, held under the arms by a steady pair of hands, like a doll, Sakura looked at her protector strangely as she was moved and placed gently on the ground. "Wait here," she heard a gruff voice, and then the shinobi disappeared. Sakura blew her bangs out of her face: her day could've gotten worse, she could've died.

Wind picked up a little and blew a leaf past the girl's face, and the girl saw nothing blurs of figures battling.

Sakura saw the ground moving underneath the ANBU, creating a hill that rushed toward Yoroi Akado, intending to bowl him over. The enemy nin dodged, and then rushed toward the hawk ANBU, making a sweeping downwards motion with his katana. The pressure sliced through trees but Taka-san countered the attack with a spiral of vines that hurled itself at high-speed towards his enemy. The fight continued on.

Although the battle looked fierce, it was clear to Sakura that the Sound ninja had nowhere near the skill, expertise, and overall power of his opponent. The ANBU seemed to think of the same thing, because he doubled his ferocity, but the shinobi was still smiling like he had won.

Sakura realized why when she saw another flash, another ninja had rushed out of thin air and kicked Taka-san behind the head. Taka-san quickly recovered and dodged the new ninja's fists; he now faced two opponents. From her spot on the forest floor, the koinichi realized that the second Sound shinobi was a better fighter than most jounin, he would even give Kakashi-sensei and serious run for his money.

The second Sound nin fought using his bone as weapons and bullets. Sakura blinked, _'the skilled ninja is Kimimaro Kaguya!'_ She remembered many jounins mentioning about Kaguya among themselves as a powerful ninja, possibly, one day, he'll be as powerful as his mentor, Orochimaru.

She was worried; her only protector looked like he was struggling to keep both enemies at bay. Sakura closed her eyes, willing for this to be over. _'I swear, if I'm still alive after today, I will never ever hang out at the border of the village and will become a better ninja. Just let me live, please let me live.'_

God she was so tired lately.

She blocked out the noises around her and retreated to a dark area of her mind and waited.

She breathed.

In, Out.

In, Out.

In that dark area, she imagined herself sitting down and shutting her eyes.

She couldn't feel where she was. She could hear shuffling and muffled whispers in the distance. Somebody in her head told her not to look.

Somebody brush barely against her back.

She imagined feeling a familiar presence coming up beside her and sitting down in a companion-like, comfortable silence while another companion was farther away, observing her. She imagined herself not wishing to know who her companions were, when she heard their shallow breaths. Just like she didn't want to know what was happening in the outside world.

Ignorance was bliss. She felt no pain. She felt weak.

Suddenly, hands clasped her ribs again, avoiding the bloodied hole in her back. Sakura opened her eyes and realized that the ANBU guard had taken her and began to run towards Konoha. The wounded koinichi looked behind, Kaguya was no where to be found underneath massive amounts of mud and trees. Akado still was standing and looked like he still wanted the fight to go on. Sakura, wincing at her torn muscles, flung her only kunai at him, which managed to bury itself into his lower leg, rendering him disabled.

Yeah, Yoroi was really incompetent. She practically threw her weapon like a grandma throwing radishes at kids to get them off her lawn.

Ignoring Akado's yell of pain, Sakura turned her attention to the ANBU carried her over his back. Taka-san was whispering in a low tone into his communicator; he called for possible back-up but more or less, he needed specialized trackers to find Kaguya who, last time the ANBU had seen, was heading North-East.

Sakura heard his labored breathing as they ran away from the scene. She looked at her surroundings and noticed the trees flying by in slower pace. _'He's poisoned,' _Sakura thought, examining his paler skin tone and took a deep breath, '_I should try and help._' Sakura looked at her left hand that was dripping in her own blood and placed her bloody hand over Taka-san's injured shoulder. She forced her blood into the ANBU's wound by pure will. The pink haired girl tried to concentrate on the poison in his body which she was trying to draw out.

Her chakra and blood could not find any traces of the poison except in a big concentration near the ANBU's neck by his spine. She tried to pull on the poison, like a magnet. Time came and gone. "Don't worry Taka-san," She assured him, "I've seen this before, and I know what I'm doing." She stared at her handiwork, "At least I think I know what I'm doing." She muttered.

The man's muscles stiffened under her hand, when he heard her words. "Oi, stop tensing, it get's easier if you can just relax." Sakura complained, her bossy side getting the better of her.

"Ah, miss? As a member of the ANBU, I really think that you should-." The older ninja tried to reason and add a slightly threatening cover over his poisoned-laced, weak voice.

Sakura gave him a look.

She later would not, can not recall what she said to him, but she remembers that he stayed quiet, and that she continued her tiring work.

After a few minutes the koinichi groaned; all she could achieve was a mixture of blood and a yellow-green liquid to seep out of his wound. That was better than nothing right? At the Konoha hospital, while she was waiting for Naruto she remembered following around the medic nins, curious about their jobs. The medic nins didn't seem to mind, and so Sakura spent some of her time checking on Naruto and observing the ways the medics treated ninjas that came back from missions. Shadowing medic nins was easy, trying to imitate what they do was by far the most meticulous and taxing actions she has done yet. She counted herself lucky to have just happened to see the Dokunuki no Jutsu, the poison extraction technique, used once by Tsunade sama, a couple days ago.

Sakura Haruno had no idea that the jutsu she was attempting was S-Class. Her attempt took a lot of concentration and chakra out of her. Exhausted and unhappy that she couldn't help Taka-san, Sakura let her head rest on his back and fell into a dreamless sleep.

"_**Impossible, this generation has so much potential."- Yamato**_

When Tenzo first reached the village, he debated for a moment on what are his priorities. Should he first give the girl and himself hospital treatment, or report to Tsunade sama about the infiltration at the village border? He opted for a compromise; he gave the pink haired girl to a mildly bemused jounin, instructing him to give her to the medics, and then began to make his way to the Hokage tower, earning lots of curious and horrified stares as he made his way through the halls.

Tenzo nodded to a fellow ANBU member guarding the door to the Hokage's personal room and knocked. "Come in!" When the Slug-Sannin saw him, her grip on her pen loosened and fell to the floor. She didn't bother trying to pick it back up.

"Good grief! Yamato! Why aren't you at the hospital?!"

'What a surprise,' Tenzo as he took off his hawk mask mused to himself, 'she's sober.'

Yamato (Tenzo?) coughed, "There has been a breach at the edge of the village by two Sound shinobis."

Tsunade's eyes widened, "Oh god, you're poisoned too," She remarked, examining him, "Explain to me while I get you to the hospital."

Yamato shrugged, and started his way to the white building. He felt a hand pressing chakra into his open would on his back. "Don't worry," Tsunade reassured the ANBU, "It's just a minor jutsu to stop the poison in your system. Deadly nightshade extract mixed with chlorine if I'm not mistaken. The jutsu won't get rid of it; I will have to do my poison-extraction technique in a more appropriate area and then get you drugged up on meds, AGAIN." She gave a pointed look.

"Ah yes," Yamato ignored the look, "The poison-extraction technique: I thought that only you can use it."

"I am…" The Slug-Sannin replied questioningly.

"A genin who I carried back from the assault took out, albeit painfully, most of the poison. I noticed when my spine didn't become so stiff."

Tsunade gasped, "And you don't have any internal injuries?!"

Yamato sighed, "It was painful, she probably didn't do any lasting damage, but I probably have internal bleeding added to the fact that I already lost a good deal of blood. She should be in the hospital, and it was her that had the two ninjas trying to get through me to her, one I recognized as Yoroi Akado and another I suspect is Kimimaro Kaguya who attacked me only when I was about to beat Akado, at her tail. What amazed me is that her body-flicker appeared to have let her escape Akado, even though I saw that she had serious injuries."

They both know what that meant. Jutsus yield better results if one's chakra control is more precise. That meant that beating somebody like Akado in speed, although in a short distance, was impressive.

Yamato could see the dazed stare she had and could sympathize with her. A genin attempting a S-class technique and escaping faster than normal while wounded is something hard to wrap one's mind around. None-the-less, the ANBU continued to detail his fight to the bewildered Hokage, who was lost in her thought and shaking her head.

At last, they reached the Hospital, where Tsunade ordered Shizune to take Yamato to a room and tend to him.

"_**Dan, I can't take it anymore."-Tsunade**_

A few minutes later, Tsunade found herself looking at a green eyed koinichi with the most unusual hair color. The girl, named Sakura Haruno, was explaining to the best of her abilities what happened before she met the ANBU. Again, Tsunade couldn't believe what she was hearing, but in her state of mind, she deduced that Kimimaro Kaguya and Yoroi Akado were on a mission to take the pink haired koinichi hostage in exchange for her teammate Naruto Uzumaki and the Kyuubi's power.

"And Taka-san managed to get me back here." Sakura Haruno finished.

The Hokage smiled inwardly, 'Heh heh, Taka-san. Hawk-san. It suits him.'

'Her tactics are good too. I have never seen another genin use a Body Replacement Jutsu and gotten such good results. She even roughly healed her most serious wounds.'

The Hokage returned to the present. "Good work. I'm afraid, Haruno-san, that because of your near critical injuries, you'll have to stay here for a while." The Slug-Sannin gave the young koinichi a drink that's filled with sleep inducers that should take effect in a few seconds. 'Poor girl,' She thought, 'All she needs now is rest. Physical blood-loss is now stable, but it'll take some good sleep to get her chakra up to normal. She's dangerously low on it, because of her fight, no matter how good her chakra control is.' "You did well."

But as Tsunade was about to leave, she heard a cough, "Hokage-sama?"

The older woman turned around, "Yes?"

"Ano… I was wondering… um… It's a bit sudden." Sakura sat up and twiddled her fingers nervously, "Do you accept apprentices?" She didn't looked at the Sannin in the eye, but settled for the space between the nose and forehead.

Tsunade froze, "Well, I do...did." She said slowly, "But I can't take more than one. It's a first come first serve basis, I'm sorry, but that is the tradition for a medic-nin. I have already accepted one."

Sakura's face fell, "Oh. So, who is it?"

"Ino Yamanaka." The Slug-Sannin will have to bring out the booze after she's done. Something twisted in the pink-haired girl's gut.

(A certain blond koinichi sneezed in her family's flower shop.)

"Ah," Sakura fought to stay awake and not let the disappointment show. "Well, you can't get everything you need… I want to congratulate her…" She fell into a rare, deep sleep.

Tsunade observed the sleeping koinichi. Her face softened because what she saw was a troubled, young girl.

'I'm sorry, Sakura Haruno. Don't fret. I see potential in you too.'

'There was something about her.' Tsunade let the thought fly as she walked back to her office. 'It's like she…'

TO BE CONTINUED.

Glossary-

**Shunshin no Jutsu**. D rank. Body Flicker Technique. Used for short bursts of speed. The length of the jutsu and the speed at which the user goes depends on the user's chakra control and amount. Using the technique too long can cause inner damage.

**Kawarimi no Jutsu**. D rank. Replacement Technique. A mini-shunshin, trades the user for a nearby object.

**Dokunuki no Jutsu**. S rank. Poison Extraction Technique. User uses water as a medium and guides his or her chakra through the patient and uses the liquid to hold the poison that's being pulled out. Sakura's version is to force her blood through the patient and collect the poison. Chakra control is vital as one small mishap can cause severe damage.


	2. Embodies Alters

_**Author Notes… Hi ^O^ So far, Sakura still needs to find her identity... per say. (I mean, dude, in the manga she had a kind of reflexive personality, a type that sort of... responds to other people's actions (ie- turns violent at Naruto's stupid moments) but nothing of what she personally do (at least I can't find it) so I guess it's a good thing since there's technically lots of ways an author can mold her.) **_

_**And here, we catch a glimpse at the mess called Kakashi!**_

"_**Yosh!"-Lee**_

Naruto looked from atop the Hokage monument, sitting on the Yondaime's stone hair, swinging his legs back and forth idly and waiting for the right moment.

The sun was coming up, Naruto knew that the 'prank' he was doing doesn't really qualify as a prank, but more like harmless fun. He sighed, Lee wasn't here yet. Pity, Lee's loud voice rivals five Naruto voices put together. Maybe he overslept.

'Again,' the blond thought, glaring into space. Yeah, he was hanging out with Lee. Yeah, the Lee who has a bowl-like haircut, the Lee who thinks green spandex is the best thing since sliced bread, the Lee who, like his mentor, Maito Gai, has an ability to capitalize letters while speaking.

The jinchuuriki looked into the distance.

Since he failed to bring Sasuke back from his road to Orochimaru, the demon container decided to keep his mind occupied with more trivial things, lest he looses his mind because of guilt. This game, which he calls, "Naruto's Great Morning Call," has been in use for several days now. The Godaime knows about his pranks, she probably already read through the Sadaime's files on him, so she's trying to exercise tolerance. But he knows that the Sannin is at the end of her fuse. As the days go by, well, lately the genjutsu she had put on her appearance sometimes cracks just a little. It's only a matter of time before Tsunade-baachan would blow up from her lack of beauty sleep.

The blond snickered; _'insecure old hag_,' he thought fondly as he fingered his necklace.

He checked the sun, and did some hand seals: ram, snake, tiger, and activate. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," the boy said, grinning as seventy Narutos popped up around him. The real Naruto stood and stretched, "Ready guys?" He watched as the sun peaked over the horizon, "Three, Two, One…"

_**Chapter 2… Embodies Alters**_

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!!!" All seventy Narutos and the original crowed at the top of their lungs.

Four seconds passed. "cock-a-doodle-doo…!" the echo whispered.

The results were immediate, houses with black windows suddenly brightened. Some patrolling ANBU personnel that Naruto was fairly acquainted with since he was a toddler just shook their heads and rubbed their temples. Ordinary people poked their heads out, sleepy and pissed off when they saw that it was Naruto whom, for the seventh time, woke them up, they angrily shook their fists at.

"DAMN DEMON BRAT, SHUT UP!!" Came the synchronized voices heading back toward Naruto, who just grinned and took it all in stride. Ah, music to his ears.

Everything seemed normal; it was all routine.

He was about to hop off from his perch when a kick out of the air slammed him face first back onto the monument.

"Naruto, my Friendly-Eternal Rival! It is I! Lee!" Rock Lee then did his Good Guy Pose number forty-eight, the pose where he makes two victory signs and his two right upper incisors flash brightly. Naruto rubbed his cheek and ignored the brilliant light.

"Itai! Wadidya do that for, Eyebrows?!" He whined.

"Because, my Youthful Friend, you did not wait for me. We were prepared to greet the New Day together!" Naruto swore that the bowl-head ninja's eyebrows wiggled in a way to display hurtful emotion.

"I just thought that maybe you're alarm clock didn't go off or something. Chill!" Naruto complained, the bruise already beginning to fade somewhat, "We do this everyday."

"My Youthful Friend, I keep informing you this, but it is not my alarm clock that causes me to be late. It my training and devotion to Gai-sensei, that makes me loose track of time! I apologize and shall, after we get out of here, punish myself by doing five hundred pushups with my pinkies! For I am the Manly Beast of Konoha!!" Naruto quickly looked the other way, used to the speeches of his friend, but out of the corner of his eyes, he could still see the spandex wearing ninja on the edge of a cliff with big waves crashing on the rocks magnificently in front of him. Naruto vainly tried to scratch the image out of his memory.

It wasn't working...

"But, I think it is time we Depart!" Lee announced, dragging the blond shinobi by the collar. Naruto looked back, laughed gleefully at his achievement (it never gets old), and agreed after seeing the usual angry and tired mob of people at the bottom of the monument. It surprised him, that the villagers still didn't get anybody to put a watch out and stop his prank in the mornings.

Without hesitation, both ninjas used shunshin no jutsu to disappear from everybody else's vision.

It was all normal and routine.

The two genins reappeared on a red roof.

They looked back from where they started; neither were out of breath as they gazed at the Hokage tower now in the distance. "Wow," Naruto grinned, "Tsunade-baachan came out. And…" He squinted his eyes, "It looks like she's on warpath. Heh, finally." He back flipped onto another roof and waved to the distant Hokage who was shaking her fist at him and shouting. She was too far away to be cursing him.

That was the break from the routine.

"Yosh! Her youthful actions remind me of the exact youthful actions that I have seen my dear cherry blossom partake in!"

The shorter shinobi blinked, "Sakura-chan?"

"Yes!" Lee's adoration is still strong.

Naruto looked to his side, "Huh." He smirked and slightly tilted his head toward his bottom right.

Lee followed his movement until he saw a window where he then gasped and pointed, "Its Sakura-chan!!"

"Shhh! Not so loud!" The bijuu container hissed.

Both boys stared at the window. They could only see one closed eyelid and lots of pink hair; a hand was unconsciously pulling up the bedcovers. Both boys wanted to say, 'aww,' but only one had the manly pride to speak out loud. "So the red roof is the roof of her house!" Lee whispered awestruck. "All those times we were right above her!"

Naruto sighed when he heard Lee shout again, forgetting what the jinchuuriki warned him about. "Aww, do you not see the youthful aura around her?!" Lee started tearing up. To his amazement, Sakura was a very deep sleeper. "Do you think that I have a chance at gaining her undying affection?"

He was caught off guard with the question, since he had no good experiences when it came to the opposite sex. "Eh?" The blond thought for a while, "Well, after the chunin exams, she stopped going after Sasuke if that's what you're wondering." Naruto continued to stare at her, not a bit guilty at all; it was her fault as a ninja for not putting screens on her window. Yet, he felt like something was off, "her crush on him disappeared suddenly." He stated. Like something that went by so fleetingly that it didn't seemed to have survived for the past years so strongly.

Lee deflated, "Then when Sasuke deflected I heard that she told him that she loved him. What do you think about that?"

His friend gave a barking laughter, but didn't say anything. Truth is, Naruto isn't really sure what had happened. Sure, he's known Sakura for a long time and recently, after that big mess at the restaurant, he considered her as a close friend.

But…

As soon as Sakura's crush had disappeared, it had reappeared for another five seconds before being never heard of ever again. Is that heartbreak? To act like she never cared? He doubted it. And if some 'love' as Lee described was that fleeting, then Naruto felt like it must be fake. Even his crush for Sakura, though going away, still partly rears its head from time to time.

But if the 'love' was fake, then why did she continue it?

Was she forcing herself to love him? He scratched his chin.

To make Sasuke stay out of guilt? Out of love?

Or was it for her own purpose...? He scratched the back of his head.

Girls are so weird.

Naruto decided to lead his thoughts onto other matters, "Tell ya what, tomorrow, instead of the hokage monument for next week, since Tsunade-baachan is going to blow up next time for sure, let's meet here, same time, don't forget to set your alarm," He hastily reminded and continued before Lee could get a word in edgewise, "And we'll pretend to be different types of birds and..." He whispered the rest of his plan into the other's ear. "We'll give Sakura-chan the wakeup call of her life! And, she can even join us! I'm sure she will! Dattebayo!"

'Hopefully,' Naruto thought. Lee gave his enthusiastic consent and the two parted ways. Tomorrow, Naruto will get beat up by an alarm clock thrown by a pissed off and tired koinichi.

The two shinobis parted ways and it wasn't until the middle of Lee's thirty-ninth lap around Konoha that he realized that Naruto never gave him a real answer concerning Sakura.

"_**It's nothing, everything's wrong with me"- Rin**_

There is a feeling where one knows that they're in too deep, but one keeps going because the deep end is comforting in a morbid way. One will keep pushing forward down a never-ending road to nowhere. That's where Hatake Kakashi is.

Welcome to Hell.

After the devastating ambush on Konoha at the chunin exams, the Village Hidden in the Leaves was running dangerously low on manpower. Kakashi was back in the front lines again at the mission station, taking up jobs that were so dangerous that even some ANBU members would pause before accepting them.

The copy-nin was in a middle of a slaughter. It was him versus a huge group of missing-nin body guards and a prominent political family from Water country who rebelled against their government. The daimyo of Water country sent a high pay request to the Village Hidden in the Leaves for one single ninja to assassinate all of the people in the main family secretly, leave no witnesses.

Tsunade hired the leader of Team 7. "I have no one else; I think you understand our situation." She had explained. He did understand. Konohakagure needs to keep up a front that they are still strong. "So far, there's no one out there like you, so here. I'm giving you a lot of time to carry out. So when you are done, take a vacation, you need it." She smiled.

Vacation? He hadn't felt this alert since his ANBU days.

He had a daito in each hand with chakra pumping through both. It was a living room, with a fireplace and three couches surrounding one coffee table. The windows had let the moonlight shine onto the bloodstained rug. Mostly, there were shadows, as it was the dark of night, and he had caught his prey unaware.

The copy nin scowled, as another enemy came up behind him. Idiot, the missing nin was asking to be killed. He was Kakashi of the Sharingan. One that fights like a devil when need calls. He needed to be careful, because he was surrounded.

Stab at the jugular vein, behind the neck, through the eyes and into the brain, the heart, and the kidneys: it was a massive bloodbath as one by one, his enemies dropped like flies. It doesn't matter if five shurikens were in his leg, he kept the slaughter going. Slice off an arm, take off a head, they all seem the same.

The bodyguards tried, oh yes they tried. But he killed them all the same. They had sliced open his arms, but he had their hearts taken out and their guts spewed all across the floor. He looked at it all apathetically.

Just like the ANBU days.

He looked toward his targets, the family of four was huddled in a corner, a woman was screaming, "Demon! Demon! Monster!" He chuckled to himself; the moment he had walked into the room, she was proclaiming her rank and power and telling him to leave, after he destroyed her guards, she turned into another pathetic prey, fearing for her life. There is no pity.

She was shaking in fear, and motioning someone behind her to come forward. For a second, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. She was pushing a little girl in front of her and hiding behind the little girl. Like a shield, like a tool, Kakashi's eyes narrowed as he knelt down until the child didn't have to tilt her head to stare at him.

"Is she your mother?"

The girl continued to stare at him blankly. Her voice was a completely different story, full of hatred, "I wish she wasn't. I wish you can kill her slowly. Like what she did to me." The shinobi studied her with a critical eye, she was abused, he realized. She had malnutrition. Her arms were bony and the skin had scars from knives, whips, and burns. Her eyes were empty.

So empty. He can only imagine what they were doing to her.

Like Rin's eyes, but Rin could always heal her own injuries...

The Head of the family took this silence as a sign that the assassin was distracted. He had a tanto hidden in his kimono. The man rushed toward the ninja with no abandon, screaming, "Die monster!" The copycat ninja saw him out of the corner of his eye and threw a kunai that struck him between the eyes. In rapid session, he threw two more kunais that killed the elder brother and mother before they screamed.

The shinobi looked back at the little girl, "I'm going to have to kill you too."

She shrugged, "Ok." That feeling... the feeling of giving up on life...

It was bugging him. He was hallucinating, he knew it, but he couldn't stop it. Kakashi watched as the child's features grew sharper, as patterns formed on her cheeks, as her hair turned brown, as her eyes turned from black to bronze.

Rin looked at him, her eyes were empty as she said, "I'm so sick and tired."

"Tired of what?" Kakashi asked, his voice suddenly reverted back into his thirteen year old self. The dead bodies around them disappeared; the room that they were in was replaced by the forest and surrounded by Iwagakure ninjas who were stubbornly fighting. Their mission was to patrol the border and defend it against any hostilities while tensions between shinobi nations still ran high.

It would be another week before Iwa and Konoha would sign an uneasy peace treaty.

The dual had just managed to repel the first wave of attacks and were waiting for a second wave. The trees in the forest seemed menacing when one knows what they could hide. Both were low on chakra, from fending off the enemy with a combination of a Katon: Goukakyo no Jutsu and a whole lot of Katon Bunshins. The silver haired ninja looked at his companion, "What do you mean?" He asked cautiously, worried.

Her voice pattern hasn't been the same since Obito died, but she sounds even more broken and depressed than ever. "About, well, life. Everything. My family. You. Obito." He winced, the memory of the death of the Uchiha would forever hang off of his guilty conscience. Rin too, took it really hard. Sensei and he tried everything to cheer her up, but it wasn't working. Kakashi had tried all the things he thought of but- "I know that you would probably never return my feelings… but… but…" The girl started sobbing. He winced again. The Iwagakure ninjas took this opportunity to attack.

A ninja must never show their emotions during battle, "Rin. Rin, don't cry." He pleaded as he parried a nearby shinobi's attack and then kicked him in the solar plexus. He used the handle of his kunai to aim a blow to the back of his neck, knocking him out cold. He stabbed him through the eye.

"Obito was my anchor, I have nothing now. " Rin didn't move an inch as a battle started around her. "It just hit me now. What do I have to live for?"

_You, Hatake Kakashi?_ "I'm so sorry Kashi-kun." She smiled.

"Rin, snap out of it!" Kakashi shouted. He beheaded another enemy.

The young ninja saw out of the corner of his eye an enemy ninja preparing hand seals. Two more men engaged with him.

He looked on desperately as he was being lured farther and farther from his team mate. He tried to run back but two Iwa ninjas blocked his way.

"We wouldn't advise you to do that Sharingan Kakashi." They said, "You're fighting us, and if she wants to die, then she shall die."

"I'll fucking kill you two," The Konoha shinobi growled but he couldn't do anything as he continued battling. His hands were itching to form Chidori, if only he had enough chakra. "Doton: Iwayado Kuzushi." He heard behind him. His blood ran cold; it was the exact same jutsu that killed Obito. Rin stiffened behind him, but she didn't move as boulders threw themselves toward her.

"Rin!" He yelled out, "Get out of the way! Rin!"

But all he heard was a whisper, "I have nothing now," Then the slamming of boulders against each other and another human being.

After the sound of a squelching thud, the Kakashi heard nothing.

Hatake Kakashi didn't, no, couldn't remember what happened afterwards but when the battle was over, he was the only one alive. When he came to, he was carrying his only friend on his back, not caring about her blood that was spilling all over him.

She was dead.

Rin was dead.

Later, the young ninja developed a suspicion of her parents, who, when he announced her death at the doorway, replied, "Good riddance, she brought enough shame on all of us. We refuse to let her name onto the memorial stone." That it was their fault that she was gone.

'What?' He had thought, he was expecting tears and sadness.

They continued. "She's a disgrace, we had to beat some sense into her to even become a well off koinichi. She's so weak that after every mission she's always crying. She embarrasses us all." Being a part of the branch family of the Inuzukas was a harsh life, that Kakashi knew, but it shouldn't be abusive. No, the parents were just insane; it had nothing to do with the Inuzukas.

It suddenly all made sense. Obito was Rin's anchor to sanity. Heh, that Uchiha and his antics gave Rin a break from her household. Obito probably knew it all along but didn't say anything to respect his comrades. He was so blind.

She was hiding behind a mask of happiness. "Disgrace."

She had an abusive family but wouldn't say it. "Beat some sense into her."

How long has this been going on? It must be at least a couple of years. "Weak."

She was shattering on the inside, into a million little tiny pieces. "Crying."

He could only stare at these pitiful excuses of human beings, his anger was shooting upward. His hands clenched and unclenched and it was only because of Sensei that he refrained from...

"Well, what are you doing standing there?"

"Aren't you going to kill me?" The assassin shook himself out of his memories, to catch the last question of the girl at his side. He smiled grimly.

"I'll make this quick." He struck the girl behind the neck with his kunai, severing the nerves, dislocating the spine so that she won't feel anything.

Instant death. He briefly wondered that if he had done it slower, if she had time, would she had thanked him? The shinobi looked at his surroundings.

Carnage. All he leaves is blood and dead bodies. His hands are tainted again, they are so red. He slowly plucks out the shurikens that were embedded into him.

It's his blood mixed with the enemies' blood. It's his punishment.

Numbness takes over his senses as he stumbles toward the window and punches through.

Even the breeze of the night smells metallic to the one eyed ninja.

"_**Shut the fuck up and act normal for once,"- Inner Sakura**_

It was a mindscape. It was a chamber, a living room of sorts. The place was decorated with, at first glace, tacky items. Fragile Christmas ornaments hung from the ceiling by black chains. The floor was barely visible, under different couches, desks, tables, and random objects such as rubber chickens and an icicle. Three different dressers of three different sizes lined up against a wall under a wide window stretched from corner to corner that showed only white. Two walls were covered by full bookcases. The fourth wall had four distinct doors.

The door on the far right was oak, but it didn't look regal at all. Somebody had vandalized it by painting a yellow unhappy face on it with a speech bubble saying, 'Shannaro!'

The door burst open and a figure came stomping out. The girl was all black, her clothing was black, but semi-transparent with a white outline. "What the hell is going on...?" She muttered to herself as she started pacing around the room, easily dodging a clothesline and junk scattered across the floor. "Cha, Host is distressed again."

She stopped in her pacing and pointed a finger to the window and glared at it. The window immediately turned black, and then, the whole room disappeared around her, leaving only darkness and a chair.

The transparent girl seemed rather surprised at the chair and at another girl, who was probably not older than five, that materialized on it. The new visitor had bloodied blond hair and sunken, green eyes. She was wearing tattered pajamas.

"Youko? What are you doing here?" She questioned the new girl.

"Same thing you, Naiteki." Youko whispered hoarsely, her eyes darted nervously around as she drew her knees to her chest.

"You felt it too." Naiteki sighed as she touched her back and winced at the phantom pain that went away as quickly as it came, "We got ambushed." She tried to speak as calmly as she can, around Youko, one has to be on her toes.

Fear flickered though her eyes as she contained her panic. "By who?"

"Yoroi Akado. That dumb wannabe wanted to kidnap us to get Sasuke. Honestly, he's probably going to kill us anyways with that stupid temper of his." She sneered as the area around the two girls shifted into a panorama view of a forest and the enemy ninja. "And, oh goody, our host is running away." She added sarcastically, "Coward, you should kick his ass! Gyahh." She groaned, both of her hands in her hair, at the corner of her eyes, she saw Youko squeak and drop her head into her arms, "At least she's healing herself." She amended.

"You're too harsh on Host. You're just mad." Youko's muffled protest came.

"I'm mad? Of what? The way that we made her fawn all over the Uchiha? Of the way we had to watch from the sidelines and watch all the other people save us? I can't take the humiliation anymore. This is all you're fault!" Naiteki said accusingly, "If you didn't go off and spout your idea to me and made me believe it, maybe-"

"No other way." The small girl whimpered. "You know that. Naiteki."

Naiteki scowled, "Whatever." She turned and glared at the screen in front of her, "Come on Sakura." Naiteki egged Host on, "Go girl, go. And..." Her fists where clenched in anticipation, "Yes! Shannaro, ANBU is here!" She sighed in relief, "For a second there, I thought that we might not be able to make it..."

Youko didn't reply, instead, hummed a little tune. She started fiddling with her fingers, content in letting time roll over her like an ocean while her partner continued watching and encouraging Sakura on. The young child's ears started ringing, and she could tell that Naiteki heard it too by the way her body stiffened. The panorama screen disappeared and made way for darkness.

"You felt?" Youko ventured to ask in her meek tone.

"Yeah." The dark girl nodded and pointed to the darkness where a pink haired girl materialized "What is Host doing here? Who's in control of the outer body?" Sakura was sitting on the ground with her hands over her eyes. The black girl sighed. "My turn," Naiteki walked over to her and sat down next to her.

Youko enjoys silence; Naiteki hates it.

Host wasn't doing anything special besides taking herself away from pain. The two girls winced as Host unconsciously transferred some of her outer pain onto them. Naiteki didn't complain though, it was all for well being of Host's mental health. With great difficulty, the black girl turned around and sought eye contact with Youko.

Host was meditating. Host managed to enter into the mindscape.

Nobody dared to interrupt the silence which seemed sacred to the three girls.

There was only breathing, thoughts, and pain. The air around them was tense and comforting at the same time. Host's mindscape always has been full of paradoxes.

A shock vibrated through the mindscape, Host gave a gasp of surprise and disappeared, and the panorama screen reappeared.

Naiteki shot to her feet and shook her head, "Well, that was interesting. What do you think of that?" She dusted off imaginary particles off of her arms.

Youko hasn't looked up yet, "Interesting." She said in her hushed tone.

Naiteki rolled her eyes and observed the escape. "We're being carried by the ANBU away from the fray." She reported and gave a low whistle, "Dang, that was some battle though, right before Host came in. Kimimaro showed up with his bones when the ANBU was about to defeat Yoroi." She paused for a while, "How I wish we were never ripped apart from Host." She groaned, "We could've made her stronger, you and I."

"She would lost s-sanity." Youko replied softly.

"I know, I know. But one could wonder, ya know?" The older girl shrugged as a wistful expression flashed by her face, "We probably would've kicked ass on Ino-pig."

"Lost s-sanity." Youko repeated as she twirled her hair.

"I get it." Naiteki said irritably. Youko tensed up. The other girl scratched her head, "Sorry, ok, here's the plan. I'm going to send some chakra over to heal Host's body to take away the infection. And then, we can… Oh, she's healing the ANBU's back. Continue?"

The young girl cocked her head to the right, "Why not?" She relented. "About time show potential, skill." She was still looking down.

Her companion nodded sheepishly and shifted her weight to her right, "I actually attached some of my essence back into her mind." Youko's head raised slightly, "I thought it was time for the change that we've been planning on. Otherwise, she won't be able to reach jounin until she's an old lady."

Youko sighed, "Time your planning."

"Thanks, I thought that you might be a bit peeved since it would be earlier than what you would expect."

"I am bit peeved." Came the flat voice.

"Whatever." Naiteki dismissed the comment, "I haven't seen you since the Chunin exams so I'll brief you. I already took away those stupid hormones that were tacked onto the Uchiha boy. Host noticed subconsciously so tried to make her self seem like it was a slow progress. I'm still hiding her… er… problems from her, since they're all your business."

"Good."

"I'm currently trying to find out if she has any affinities or special strengths but I think she's doing that on her own- Oh hell no." She growled, "One moment." She closed her eyes and faded away.

Youko shook her head, "Poor ANBU." She murmured.

She heard Naiteki rant (threaten) to the Hawk masked ninja. "I fucking know what I'm doing you stupid man so just let me work and I can fucking assure you, if you stop me, you won't live. But I'll make you live long enough to feel the pain when I rip your balls off your body telling you, 'I told you so' and use them as earrings." She used killer intent. Not the Youko's surprise, the Hawk ANBU warily stopped struggling.

Naiteki faded back into the room and grinned at her accomplishment, "And I would always follow my word too," she bragged. "Shannaro! We're almost at Konoha! Peace again!" She made a victory sign.

Youko didn't say anything. The space the girls were in transformed back into the messy living room. Youko got up and walked toward the second door from the right, the door that was all black, she didn't bother opening the door, because there was no doorknob.

She walked through it.

Naiteki snorted and collapsed onto the couch, "Feh, she's just jealous that I don't have to go through her shit daily. Well," She continued with a wistful air, "at least my counseling for her shows some progress..." She promptly passed out.

"_**Sweetest thing you'll ever meet, so polite, unlike that Uzumaki demon brat that's on her team,"-Konoha head librarian**_

It was a bright sunny day where ordinary civilians and ninjas alike in the Village Hidden in the Leaves were doing their daily business. Some were conversing, some were window shopping, and some were walking down the street with a very tense gait. Yamato was deeply troubled at the pink haired genin that he managed to save some few days back.

Something was off about her. First, it was her chakra control, well, who in the world can manage to use Shunshin no Jutsu as a long term escape plan? As far as the ANBU was concerned, that jutsu is used for short bursts and for ambushing an unsuspecting enemy nin or vanishing out of another nin's vision. Long term use can lead to the implosion of the human body. Long term use wreaks havoc on the limbs and can tear them off if said ninja is not careful with the accurate amount of chakra in his body.

That's why most ninjas would just rather travel from village to village by chakra enhanced legs and feet, not as fast as the Shunshin, but a whole lot safer. The only person to bypass this rule is the Yondaime, whose nickname, The Yellow Flash, is quite self explanatory. Her pursuer, Yoroi Akado, was endangering his life when he tried to keep up with her. He was using a cool down, safer level of the Shunshin no Jutsu, but tried to catch up with regular bursts of chakra. His legs were probably barely holding up with torn muscles and cracked bones. Tenzo had no problem taking him out.

That young genin, what was her name… Haruno Sakura, has moved as one of the fastest he has ever seen in his entire life. How is she able to rival the speed of the legendary copy-cat nin? She was lagging behind Uchiha Shisui, the true master of the Shunshin, but not by much.

He didn't tell Tsunade-sama that, simply because he wanted to keep the information to himself, at least until he knew what to make of it. It wasn't going to hurt the village in any way.

He needed a drink.

His feet lead his to a nearby bar that's usually reserved for shinobis and koinichis alike. He tapped the counter and got a cup of sake.

And the second puzzling development concerning that girl is the fact that her chakra's out of control. Each human being had chakra, no matter how much. No chakra would mean that the person is dead; after all, the fifth most common way to die for a ninjutsu specialist is by chakra exhaustion and chakra depletion.

During Tenzo's fight with the Kaguya survivor, he couldn't sense the young genin at all. If it wasn't for his eyes, then he could've convinced himself that she wasn't there. For a split second, she was gone, she was dead, she wasn't there. Then, when he took her away, not sure if she was ok or not, her chakra suddenly flared back to life; from empty to full.

He kept his calm. ANBU personnel always keep calm in a situation like this. But his inner mind was whirling: how the fuck did that happen? He needed to see that genin again, his curiosity was pulling him to try and find her to ask the question, 'HOW?'

Unfortunately, the last time he had seen her; it was when he took her off his back and ordered another shinobi to carry her to the medical center. It's been three days. She shouldn't be out yet.

And the last of all the issues is the fact that each person has their own chakra that identifies themselves, call it a chakra signature. The subtle differences between energy, whether it's the shade of the color, the way it flows, the feel that it gives to the skin, only a high ninja can sense. For a guy like Tenzo, it's a piece of cake. But, he couldn't explain why the genin had two distinct chakra signatures.

One signature was obviously a dominant one. The other one, a submissive signature, only came out for a few seconds to threaten him to allow her to do extract the poison that was in his blood. The second signature surprised him so much that he allowed the genin to try and 'cure' him. Yamato nursed his cup of sake with a wiry smile on his face, it wasn't his fault for being wary of a mere child trying out a technique that only a Sannin can do successfully without dangerous side effects.

But the fact that she did it… And the fact that it saved his life…

He sensed someone walking up to the counter and sitting on a stool beside him. He didn't bother to look who it was, of fates, it was her.

That genin.

Haruno Sakura. She's out of the hospital...?

"Yeah, just give me anything cold n' numb please." He heard a tired mutter.

"You're under-aged kid and in no shape to demand a drink." The bartender informed her while polishing a glass piece. Yamato glanced to his side and was surprised by the sight that greeted him. The pink-haired girl had bruises and cuts that were fading away. She was sitting really stiffly, meaning that she was mostly bandaged around the mid-torso region.

She raised her eyebrows slightly, "Cold, numb, and non-alcoholic please." The bartender nodded and got to work.

'She doesn't know who you are…' Yamato thought to him self. "Nasty injuries you have there, bad mission?"

Sakura looked over to him and thought for a while. She flushed slightly in embarrassment, "Ambushed and attempted kidnap." She groaned and let her head rest on the counter. She stared at him, and he could tell that she was on some bad quality numbing medication, "You don't look too good either," came the accusations.

He brushed the comment off, "minor injuries, no big deal."

"Ahh." She replied a little dazed off. She closed her eyes and yawned, "Lucky you. The nurses at that hospital were going on about some collapsed lung. Don't know what they're talking about. I can breathe just fine." A tall glass of a red cocktail was pushed toward her. The girl lifted her head and chugged the whole thing down, eyes closed, non-stop.

There it was: the chakra signature exchange. The submissive signature replaced the dominant. Sakura opened her eyes and sighed, "That really hits the spot." She changed, her posture was slightly more alert, her eyes were sharper, her voice blurred.

"Careful, the injuries that Akado had done to you have not healed yet." Yamato remarked casually, silently observing.

There it was, the sign that she knows: the slight stiffening of the body as realization hits her. There was nobody else in the room that can over hear his conversation with the koinichi. "You're that hawk ANBU." She merely replied folding her arms across her chest.

"And you're not Haruno Sakura." He said idly.

"Cha, yeah I am."

"You have a different chakra identity than her. There are two different traces in you."

"More like three." She muttered. Immediately she covered her mouth in shock, but it was too late. The man heard everything. "Oh my god, you were not supposed to know that. Ugh." She groaned, "What will she say? She'll kill me. Right, this drink is non-alcoholic my ass. Shit, what has happened?" She kept ranting and hyperventilating, "Dead, dead, dead, listen, I gotta go right now." As she tried to make her escape, two things stopped her: one was her injuries, in which she winced and doubled over in pain; the other was the ANBU's hand on her wrist.

"three?"

"Yes, three." She said irritably. She paused for a moment, "You better not tell anyone else. I have no plans in my life to admit my self into the mental ward of the hospital."

He thought for a while, "So you're chakra control is that good because of the three…"

There was an instant change in temperament, but it was the same identity. Sakura shook her head, grinning, "Nope, she's just that good." She bragged and chuckled. "We just feed chakra whenever it's convenient. I mean, we need some just for our separation, ya know? So we can offer it whenever…" She made two thumbs up signs, "Don't cha worry. We always take good care of Host!"

"Host?" Was that the real Haruno?

"Yeah… uh, Sakura, I mean." She tried to lift her arms to scratch the back of her neck, but the pain was too much. "Um, has this ever happened before…?"

Yamato blinked, "I never recalled an incident like yours."

"Mah… Thanks anyways. I need to find a way to get back to normal."

He thought that he might have the general idea of what's going on. He was still curious, "Why would you choose now? Why not before?"

She had on a mock thoughtful-gaze, "Um, let's see. Chunin Exam. Orochimaru. Uchiha's deflection. Akado. I wonder what else. Waiting any longer and I'll be killed for not merging" She played with the rim of her cup, "Something's going to happen, probably all in my head too. Cha, don't act like you already know me that well ok, Taka-san? Good. I gotta go right now." For a second there, the shinobi thought that the girl was going to run off again, but he sensed the exchange of chakra signatures again.

The 'dominant' identity reappeared. The biggest change was the circles under her eyes as she blankly stared at her empty drink; she stared at the counter and blinked a couple of times.

'Interesting,' He thought as he greeted her, "Hello."

Her head shot up at the sound, and then she shook her head and smiled. "Ah, hi. Thanks for keeping me company. You must think I'm weird for being out here and... talking to you, I think." She nodded her head, not daring to make a full bow, "I have to go back to the hospital before they send out a search team, heh heh." She blinked again in confusion. "I just need some fresh air..."

'Does she feel familiar in my presence despite the fact that it wasn't her that spoke to me?' Yamato wondered as the pink hair genin shook her head and hopped off the stool. He wondered if he should help her

She staggered away; there was stiffness in her movements. There was a mask that she was hiding behind. There was pain.

"…_**Wondering, what to do with you?"- Mrs. Haruno.**_

Tsunade rubbed her temples, asking herself, for the thousandth time: why did she accept the position of Godaime? The politics, the dirty, dirty, politics that seem to hide under every nook and cranny of this place can reach out and grab an unsuspecting person.

She took out her remaining stash of sake and reminded herself to restock. She gulped down two bottles before she turned her attention to the paperwork. The Slug Sannin had picked up a routine in her everyday work. Besides the paperwork asking for less taxes on foreign goods, more funds for schools and businesses, and many people proposing new laws (no Gai, there shall not be a 'Flower-Blossoms-of-Youth Holiday), there were two orders of businesses that would pop up daily.

First order of business for the day- diplomacy. Konohagakure was looking for allies. Sunagakure took it at first offer. Kirigakure and Amegakure offered a 'you scratch my back and we might scratch yours' alliance. Everyone else was hostile or reluctant to even negotiate. To put it bluntly, Iwagakure was a pain in the ass. Hidden Stone, who was still sour about the defeat of the Third Shinobi War, was not helping matters at all.

The ambassador from Iwa made outrageous demands, a fourth of all the profits that Leaf ninjas make on missions, in exchange for a partnership. The ambassador was callous and uncooperative, almost like he was asking for war. Tsunade too a deep breath, well that idiot won't be getting it. But she needed to be on friendly terms with that nation, who, she suspects, is starting to seek help from Otogakure and Orochimaru. That was the last thing she needed, to drive a nation into the hands of her ex-teammate.

Things were not going well for her, and she was trying everything she can to avoid war. Tensions were higher than ever, probably because of the Hidden Sound and the Snake Sannin. She didn't know for sure what he was doing, but goddamn it, if it isn't manipulating of some kind, she would eat her hat.

She can only hope that Jiraiya's spy network is in top shape... and that he keeps the supply of sake for her through his toad summons. Damn it, she felt old.

Second order of business for the day- Lightning country. The next one, the one in less than five months, would be in Kumogakure, that village which still holds a big grudge over the Hyuuga clan in general. How can she avoid conflict?

Two Hyuugas would definitely try to become a chunin as soon as possible. And due to Hyuuga pride, nothing would be able to stop them from trying. Would another death, much like Hizashi Hyuuga, occur? She needs more guards, the whole village is low on manpower, but she needs more guards.

That was the least of her problems.

Dealing and negotiating with the Raikage is a lost cause. He has already made deals with the Snake Sannin and both are so secretive and hostile that Tsunade feels like she's walking on eggshells. But she has to take her potential chunins there, for appearance and to show everyone that Konoha will never back down from a challenge. Is it worth the risk? Anything can happen in a hostile country. If she backs down, it might make all the other Kages think less of her, and she'll loose face, and at this point in time, she cannot let that happen.

She has a village to rebuild to its former glory.

She feels all the over villages looming over the distance, observing.

Atatsuki's on the move, more active than ever.

Orochimaru is biding his time to take over Sasuke's body and planning something big.

She feels tired, and wishes that this would all be over.

Glossary-

**Katon: Goukakyo no Jutsu**. C-rank. Fire Release- Great Fireball Technique.

**Katon Bunshin**. B-rank. Fire Clone. Self explanatory.

**Chidori**. A to S-rank. One Thousand Birds.

**Doton: Iwayado Kuzushi**. B-rank. Earth Release- Rock Lodging Destruction.


	3. A Developmental Stage

_**Author Notes… Hi again! Oh right, I don't own Naruto! In this chapter… there's no Kakashi. He's in the next one! I promise! This chapter's more on an in depth look on affairs and events going on in missions. **_

_**I also want to detail the ninja world a bit more because Kishimoto doesn't do it enough. Anybody's welcome to debate with me over this, you probably win since I haven't read the manga in a long time, but I don't think, at least in the manga (I don't care about fanfiction) that Naruto and Sakura should be together. Even if she is 'reformed' she still treated him badly when they were little; she doesn't deserve him. They could be close friends, but in the manga, it's Naruto and Hinata all the way. In fanfiction, it's deux ex machina all the way, heh heh.**_

"_**The meaning of life is flowers, boys, ninjas, and clothes,"- Ino**_

Sakura spotted the blond koinichi at a clothing store, "Hey, Ino." Said koinichi turned around and managed to give a hearty wave while holding two articles of clothing in each hand.

Sakura looked around: the store was quaint, with a friendly atmosphere. Racks of clothes were everywhere, each one of the racks claiming a certain discount and bargain. Catchy tunes played in the background. She plopped down on chair, sitting backwards.

If she ever thought of looking for a Yamanaka heaven, she was sure that she had found it.

"Forehead," Ino grinned, "I'm meeting at a medic-nin orientation tomorrow. It's semi-formal. What do you think I should wear?" She lifted both her arms slightly, "V-cut lavender laced shirt or a pure white blouse?"

Sakura yawned while pointing to the shirt. "Thanks Sakura, lavender it is." Ino examined herself in the mirror, holding the shirt up to her chest, "I think the length won't take away from my height since it can double as a short skirt. I just need to get a belt of some kind." She mused, admiring herself and turning her body to the side.

Sakura looked up without moving her head, "Congratulations, by the way." She tried to speak sincerely and not sarcastically, but her whole tone was cynical. _'You didn't ever tell me that you became a medic, apprenticed under the Godaime, legendary Slug Sannin.'_ Inner Sakura growled dangerously.

Ino flushed with pride, "I know, seriously, it was amazing. I was so amazed when Tsunade-sama, I mean Tsunade-shishou, accepted me. Can you believe it? She even complimented me." Her eyes glittered in joy, "Saying that I have untapped power and that my chakra control is above average. I'm learning from a Hokage. The best."

A hurt look appeared on her friend's face. "And you didn't tell me…"

Ino frowned a little, "Sorry, I didn't um, notify you. But, things were getting busy and it slipped my mind." She looked apologetic.

Sakura narrowed her eyes and did not to dignify her friend's apology.

'_And you're fucking sorry because you fucking forgot to tell me?! I thought we trusted each other!_' Inner Sakura shook her fist angrily and accompanied her fist with a rude gesture. '_Betrayed! Fucking betrayed!_'

Somebody could've cut the tension in the air with a butter knife.

_**Chapter 3… A Developmental Stage**_

Sakura pushed the evil thought away as nothing more than a nuisance. She sighed, "Yeah, just tell me when important stuff like this happens. I mean, we're friends right?"

Ino nodded, still looking guilty.

Sakura thought for a while, "In fact, you can make it up by showing me what she teaches you everyday!" She finally declared, throwing her arms up in the air and waving them around excitably. "I can just mooch off of you without doing the actual work! Yatta!"

'Talk about somebody's mood doing a one-eighty.'

"_**My mom accidentally packed my lunch twice today, so she probably didn't make any for dad. That's fine with me. (^o^) "- Chouji**_

At a point of time in the past, Sakura remembered, Team seven had a party, after the preliminaries of the Chunin exam; right after Sakura lost in a draw but Sasuke and Naruto advanced; Sakura invited both her teammates to a restaurant to celebrate surviving the Forest of Death. Though they survived not unscathed, they had survived.

Sakura agreed to pay for all food expenses because she was out of the exam, though she was silently mourning for her savings since she, along with most of the other inhabitants of the village, has heard of the infamous, bottomless pit called Naruto's stomach from a certain Iruka-sensei.

The restaurant that Sakura had chosen was relatively cheap, but it was cute and comfortable. Waiters and waitresses were busy moving people, chairs, and plates of food to and from customers. It was a weekend, and Sakura barely managed to reserve a spot for her group.

The waitress, who was busy staring and winking at Sasuke, was too busy to notice his other two companions_. 'Kami no, he's thirteen, you female pedophile.'_ Inner Sakura had groaned. They were escorted, or pushed through mobs of bodies, mostly drunken men and whore-like women dancing and rubbing against each other. It was so disgusting.

She didn't notice how the volume of the whole room went down a decibel when they walked into the place.

They were seated by a window, with a clear view to the outside world where civilians and ninjas mixed. Sakura grinned as she watched Naruto look around in awe, _'almost like he had never seen the inside of a restaurant before._' Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her black haired teammate take the menus and drinks from the waitress and pass them out. She noticed the waitress freeze and walk away quickly after she noticed Naruto.

'_Wonder why,'_ Inner Sakura thought. Sakura mentally shrugged and smiled to her friends, "Alright, let's do a toast for how far you guys have come!"

"Hey Sakura-chan, you passed the Forest of Death with us too!" Naruto cheered, "We all did great, Dattebayo!"

She cocked her head to the right and grinned, "You're right! We passed the Forest of Death, home to man-eating rats, poisonous killer toads, and a clan of naked warrior amazons!"

Sasuke looked at her strangely with his black eyes, "What?"

"I only heard it from some of Anko, Sasuke-kun." She replied. "But, I'm paying in this place so I say that we're also celebrating the fact that you guys will have a chance to become chunins! I mean, I probably won't be seeing you guys for the whole month. Kakashi-sensei must be planning some horrible training regimen for you both."

Naruto made a face, "Actually, Sensei's only concentrating on Sasuke-teme's training so he won't get killed by that Gaara kid."

"Huh?" She asked in confusion, "But I thought that jounin teachers should…" Naruto silenced her with a look. Sasuke's face was hard to read, but his jaw clenched, just a little bit, in irritation. Next subject it is then, "So who's teaching you?"

"Sensei assigned the closet-pervert to me." The blond said casually, though still a bit upset.

"Eh? Hey! Don't call people that!" She whacked him over the head and settled back down in her bench, "Isn't he the one that doesn't like you when you were hanging out with that little kid with the scarf? But, that's not fair. One of you got…" She pointed to Sasuke. "And the other…" She pointed to Naruto. The air got tense once again. _'Stick foot in mouth! Stick foot in mouth!'_ Inner Sakura yelled.

Naruto did his patent closed-eye wide smile, "Don't worry Sakura-chan! He doesn't really hate me anymore, I think. Even with him, I can still get stronger and beat Neji-teme!" An uneasy 'hopefully' was floating around in the air. She was doubtful of his words. "So Sakura-chan, what type of place is this?"

"Oh!" Sakura exclaimed, "I love this place! It's as good as a four star restaurant but it's cheap. It's usually," She glanced around, wrinkling her nose, "cleaner than this. But I guess because of the invasion, this district is one of the only ones that are totally unharmed." Naruto nodded in understanding while Sasuke snorted. "Sasuke-kun, what do you think?" Sakura looked at him.

"It's too loud."

"Teme." Naruto glared, "Don't be rude!" Not feeling any urge to hit him over the head again, the pink haired girl hung her head in defeat. A glaring contest began between the two boys.

"Hello, may I take your orders?" She looked up and saw that it was a different waitress this time. But with the same expression on her face, there was tenseness around her mouth as she fought to keep something under control. A tick? A scowl?

"I'll have the house special, Mika-san," Sakura went first.

The waitress winked, "Of course Haruno-san."

"I'll have miso ramen please." Naruto exclaimed.

The waitress stiffened even more. _'Strange…'_ Sakura observed. The woman gave a dark look at him, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve monsters like you." His face fell. She turned toward Sasuke, "What can I get you Uchiha-san?" She said sweetly.

"Why don't you get the dobe's order first?" Naruto stayed silent.

The sweet-surgary voice was still there, "We refuse to serve demons. You should be happy that we allowed him in here in the first place."

Sakura decided to put her input in, "Naruto isn't a demon, what are you talking about?"

"It's ok, forget about it," Naruto's voice stated.

"No, why won't you serve him?" Sakura growled. "He's not a demon." Sasuke nodded assent. They heard a clang of broken glass at the bar counter and laughter, but not the happy kind, but the drunken, woe-is-I, bitter laughter. The three genin and the waitress turned toward the sound.

"He is a demon, a god damn demon," one of the men yelled out, "who dares to show himself in our presence."

"What? He's not a demon!" Sakura yelled disbelievingly. _'He's annoying at times, and he pranks a lot, but this is too much!'_

"Stupid girl! He should've been executed thirteen years ago!"

"Sakura-chan," The blond groaned.

Another man laughed, "He's not a demon," he mocked in a high pitch voice, "He has the Kyuubi in him! He's a monster!" The word was like the beginning of the domino effect, Sakura felt like she was drowning in the hurtful words.

"Monster!"

"So many people died that night!"

"Our families were decimated."

"I thought that the Sadaime was nuts when he said to keep IT a secret."

"Yeah, yeah! Tell the truth to the kids, they need to know the whole truth about the monster that STILL LIVES."

"The Kyuubi was never killed!"

"It went into the brat's body!"

"The Yondaime sealed it into him; the Sadaime should've killed the Jinchuuriki!"

The genins froze. The waitress clicked her pen twice, "Uchiha-san, would you like to order anything?"

Naruto had slouched so much that only the top of his yellow hair could be seen. Sakura gritted her teeth, "I don't believe this," She muttered. She grabbed both her teammates' arms and walked out of the place, ignoring the waitress's calls, "Unbelievable, the first time we ever eat together at a place that's not Ichiraku's and this happens."

They kept walking till they got to the training grounds. She glanced around; there was proof of hatred that was aimed at the blond boy. Children who were innocently playing in the middle of the street got pulled away from Team 7 as they walked by. Adults were whispering and glaring towards him. Mothers held their infants more tightly to their chests when they saw Uzumaki Naruto. Sakura never wondered why these things would happen when Naruto walked by, until now. '_Stupid, stupid, stupid, why didn't it ever occur? We're smart. Why couldn't we figure it out?_' Inner Sakura berated her.

It's because nobody ever bothered to notice. Nobody knew.

They stopped by the tree away from all other civillians. She turned toward the two boys and sighed, "I'm sorry, I just can't believe how rude they were. I know the people that work there. They're nice people." _'Most of the time.'_

"It's ok." That was Naruto.

"Hn." That was Sasuke.

She continued, "I swear I'm never going back there ever again. I never realized how cruel they can be. Those people, they were such bastards, and so rude, and so unreasonable." There was a pause, "Kyuubi, Naruto?" She inquired.

Naruto lifted his shirt up, Sakura and Sasuke could see the complex seal on his stomach. Sakura's eyes widened. "The Yondaime sealed him inside of me." He explained as his eyes examined his teammates, gauging their reactions to the new information.

"Jinchuuriki," Sasuke muttered to herself, "It explains everything. Such power." He narrowed his eyes. Naruto looked at him quizzically, but he didn't elaborate.

His head was filling up, like a sink with a broken water tap, with thoughts of a memory, that fateful day: the day of the massacre. "Foolish, little brother." A cold voice whispered in the depths of his mind.

'Demon chakra, more power, get stronger, kill Itachi,' the thoughts that were flying around the Uchiha's head were relentless. The back of his neck began throbbing with pain. He needs to achieve his goal as soon as possible.

Achieve his goal.

Get stronger. Everything else is a hindrance.

Kill Itachi.

"If you want to come after me, get stronger. Avenger your family, foolish, little brother." He walked away from his teammates.

"Weird." Naruto remarked, already back to his old self.

"Yeah." She agreed with a semi-hollow voice.

"Ramen?"

"Why not?" They didn't think much about the brooding boy. The shock was in her, causing her mind to go unusually blank, but she will take it in stride, one step at a time.

"_**Life's treating you well?" – Iruka Umino**_

D-missions are the lowest of the low. They're called chores: terrible, tedious, torture. Iruka-sensei was sick and has been stuck in his home for a week now. Nobody was manning the mission station; the ninjas would just browse through the mission scrolls and just pick one, sign their names, inform their clients and do their work. Sakura would try to get a C-mission but D-missions were in high demand. _'Lazy bums, carry your own groceries.'_

Besides, the genin was all alone. She envied all the others, the rest of the Rookie Nine, or Eight. She's sure that Team 8 and 10 would've never been ripped so spectacularly apart like hers. _'They are all busy with their own team building exercises and their C-rank missions.'_ She yawned and rubbed her eyes while walking one of the Inuzuka dogs. (She wasn't really walking the dog, she was riding on its back and directing it where to go.) A week after she was released from the hospital, she found herself passing the time doing missions and developing both her stamina and chakra levels.

She had a voice inside of her informing her that she has to at least be good at the average abilities for a ninja (taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu) in order to have any hope in progressing any further. But in order to be good at the average abilities for a ninja, one has to have endurance and average chakra storages. The koinichi spends her spare running laps, doing push-ups and sit-ups, and climbing trees with chakra. She better has improved or else days where she would stumble toward home in exhaustion would all be in vain. Her chakra storages should be a whole lot bigger than before. She could now do a good number of Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu before feeling sleepy.

The guy that she met at the bar, that time when she was running away from the nurses, keeps bumping into her on the streets. Sometimes, he would greet her and, if she lets her imagination run wild, would seem to check on her health. She feels like she knows him really well, but then she really doesn't know him at all. He doesn't talk much at all, she tried engaging him in a conversation about anything: the weather, missions, shopping, his face plate: nada. Sometimes, he would only give her scrolls and disappear immediately afterwards. They turned out to be medical scrolls, on chakra scalpels, chakra healing, and much to her confusion, on the different wards of the hospital, mental health, and mental therapy. The genin was sure that he was the one behind the ANBU mask that saved her from Akado and Kaguya after she received a scroll on a Proper Dokunuki no Jutsu, a special copy by the Godaime herself. Sakura felt strangely flattered.

She headed back toward the Inuzuka compound to collect her meager payments. She patted the dog's nose good-bye.

Back at the mission station, she was greeted by a sick Academy teacher. "Iruka-sensei! Are you feeling better?" The room was strangely empty with only two other chunins hanging around by the window.

The man looked up and cheerfully waved his tissue, "I'm fine Sakura. Somebody has to be here to chase down all the jounins for their mission reports when they return. Are you here for another mission?"

She nodded. Iruka coughed and looked though the mission scrolls, "So is your team outside waiting for you?"

She shifted her weight between her legs feeling a bit sheepish. "I don't have a team."

The chunin looked up in alarm, "A genin all by your self? Who is on your… Oh, I'm so sorry!" Iruka staggered to his feet, "I haven't been thinking clearly all day even though I'm deemed almost-healthy by Shizune."

"No problem."

"Yeah, it's lucky that nobody has come back yet to see me in this state. All by your self! It's that we do have a reason to put genins in teams besides enjoying watching you guys forced together in a variety of situations." The man teased, "Come on, let's go to Hokage-sama and see what she can do." He sneezed.

Feeling relief that she won't be alone, the koinichi still was slightly puzzled, "Is it too much trouble? Don't you have work to do here?"

He smiled. "Well, a slow day such as today should be taken advantage of." He took her hand, nodded toward the chunins at the window, and led the girl to the Hokage office.

She has never been in this area of the building. There were no decorations in the hallway. One side had windows while the other was a plain taupe wall. But it was still interesting; she looked around as different ninjas walked passed them, all were ANBU.

They finally reached a mini-chamber where a bored secretary sat at her desk, two ANBU staff guarding the double doors. "Excuse me," Iruka asked politely, "Is the Hokage free for a meeting?"

The secretary looked though her papers, "You're in luck. Go ahead."

The scarred chunin thanked her and took the girl to the doors. He nodded to the two ANBU guards who nodded back. Sakura stared at one of the guards intensely. She felt Iruka squeeze her hand in reassurance and opened the doors.

Tsunade was at her desk with a pen in one hand and a bottle of sake in the other, staring down at some paperwork in front of her. She looked up and seemed relieved by her guests, "Iruka! Feeling better than before?"

"Much."

"Great, keep taking the pills, drink plenty of fluids, get plenty of sleep and I can guarantee you that you will feel cured in two days. So, what can I do for you?" She looked over the desk to observe the pink haired genin. Tsunade felt recognition hit her, "Oh, Sakura Haruno! How are you?"

Always be respectful to the Hokage. "Fine Tsunade-sama."

"I had Yamato give you that scroll with the Poison-Extraction Technique, just in case." She winked at the girl, who smiled back, unsure of why she was getting winked at.

Iruka looked surprised, "Isn't that an S-class technique?"

"It's an S-class technique?" The green eyed girl blinked and tried to explain herself, "I was just hanging around the hospital when Naruto was injured and I saw Tsunade-sama do it on some patient. It didn't seem too hard to do, I mean, it's not as bad as, I think a Chidori or anything." She muttered, tucking her hair behind her ears. Iruka looked down at the genin in bewilderment.

The Godaime waved her hand in front of her face, "Yes, well she did a good job for a first timer right Iruka?" Snickering at Iruka's expression, she said. "But I'm sure you guys have some business for me than regular chit-chat."

The man came out of his muteness. "Oh yeah," He said sheepishly, scratching his scar with a finger. "She doesn't have a team. She didn't know that she had to have a team until ten minutes ago."

"Yes, that's something we have to fix," Tsunade muttered, moving all the paperwork to one side of her desk and taking out a notebook and pen, "Pardon my hangover: teammates and jounin sensei?"

"Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi." Sakura replied.

"Should've known." Tsunade hummed. "You're the third member of Team 7. I was waiting for you to see me, since I don't have time to do my rounds." The lady turned around, "Racoon," Sakura watched in suprise an ANBU step out of the shadows, "Get Asuma's team here, I have to tell them about their third member." Sakura looked longingly at the ANBU's back, _'So cool. I have to learn how to do that_.'

Smile widening, the pink haired girl jumped up and down in excitement, "So I'm with Ino?" _'Shannaro!_' Tsunade chuckled.

"Yes, and but don't forget that Kakashi is still your primary teacher." The Godaime reminded the genin.

"Hmm," Sakura agreed halfheartedly, making a face "Yeah, I guess so." . Tsunade and Iruka raised their eyebrows in question. Neither pushed the subject though.

"I'll make it next time though." The girl continued. "The next time I take the damn exam; I'll become a chunin and blow everybody else out of the water." She sounded so sure of her self that Tsunade couldn't help but laugh.

"Don't disappoint us then."

She smiled again and looked at her surroundings, uncomfortably shifting her weight from one side to another. The hokage and Iruka-sensei had lapsed into their own conversation regarding painkillers. She looked at the door just as it was about to open and let go of the chunin's hand. The Raccoon ANBU led in three people.

The blond koinichi pounced on her friend, "Sakura! Forehead! Is it true? You're part of Team 10! This is awesome!"

"Ino, let her breath." Asuma said, amused. "Welcome to Team 10, Sakura Haruno." Sakura laughed and hugged her friend back. Both girls squealed happily.

"Hello Asuma-sensei. Hi Chouji." She greeted the boy.

"Hey Sakura." He smiled.

"Well, I'm glad to see everyone acquainted with each other. Team 10 was an obvious choice, seeing that only Shikamaru managed to become a chunin in the whole exam."

"Heh, well I'm glad. I thought that we wouldn't be able to take the next exam." Ino grabbed Sakura's arm and dragged her out of the office, "You can train and do missions with us! Thanks Tsunade-shishou!" She yelled, waving to the Hokage. "Bye Iruka-sensei!" The door closed behind the new Team 10.

The Raccoon ANBU shifted back into the shadows once again. Iruka waited for a few moments before asking, "Dokunuki no Jutsu?!"

Tsunade shrugged, "I still have the original copy for my apprentice so it's no big deal. Sakura can do well with that scroll."

Iruka shook his head, "It's just…" 'The potential is enormous.'

"I know." The slug-sannin rested her head on her hands, "Did you notice how she held onto your hand until the last second?"

"Is it unusual?"

"I'm a medic; I specialize in the body and mind. Even though the Kyuubi killed off all of the people outside her immediate family, she has a normal life: a mother and a father. But with the behavior she exhibited, well."

There was a pause. 'Something's not right.'

"She'll be fine; you have to have faith in your ninjas, Hokage-sama." He attempted to reassure her.

She massaged her temples. "I have Kakashi on a mission and a much needed break. I don't know how to talk to him about his remaining genin student, because the instant he comes back, he goes away on another mission that he forces himself onto. He's like a broken tape recorder. If he keeps this up, he's going to crack."

"_**Man, it's just great that I have two women hounding after me about my habits," - Asuma**_

Sakura found her self in a new routine that consisted of training by her self, training with her team, and more missions that are now Ds, Cs, and an occasional B.

Team 10's missions, thankfully, do not include catching Tora the cat, but it did include catching a demonic salamander named Raku. Team 10, besides the usual chore-missions; work on infiltration and breaking and entering and sometimes surprise assault. Most often, Asuma's team's D-missions are usually to crash a party, gala, or wedding, or to steal some object that doesn't have good security. C-missions consist of guarding and escort or taking out a gang hideout. The B-missions are where there is either kidnapping or rescuing of a person or persons.

When the team wasn't on missions, they were at Training Area 10 where Asuma would watch his subordinates spar and hand out scrolls or useful tips. At the end of the day, Team 10 would go off and eat dinner together at Chouji's favorite Bar-B-Que restaurant. Sakura would always decline though, saying that she's too tired to join.

The green eyed genin doesn't want to impose too much. They were an ideal team. Even Shikamaru would sneak off from his chunin duties and hang out with Ino, Chouji and Asuam. Sakura would usually watch them joke and laugh together, a tight friendship, a strong bond, exactly what Team 7 should've been. _'What went wrong?'_ She would usually wonder to herself as she watches the stars from her roof.

'_What did we do that was different? Is it me?'_ She stared at her hands, _'Was it the whole team's fault? Was that crush I had on Sasuke able to tear apart the teamwork? No, it's something bigger that I don't know. Something that neither Sasuke nor Naruto would tell me.'_

With her strength now at an acceptable level, she usually begins the day with running laps around Konoha and trying out ways to create her own unique fighting style. So far, due to trial and error, she decided to sacrifice strength for speed. Ino had shown her a bit of Tsunade's skill by trying to mimic her chakra enhanced punches and kicks. It was amazing, to see a boulder crushed into small rocks.

The attacks were too slow for Sakura's taste.

She has been testing her techniques on the bandits during those C-missions. It would have Sakura using her momentum from a frontal attack or a side spin and hitting her opponents. If she misses, she wouldn't jump back, change direction, and dodge the opponent's counter-attack, but would rather keep up with her speed and make minute changes in her stances and get an even closer attack under the enemy's nose.

Once she gets a hit in, she keeps up the barrage, hopefully using multiple hits to incapacitate her enemies. At least, so says her plan.

She was glad that Rock Lee was back from his mission, more or less in one piece. His team was off on a week long mission and after making an enthusiastic compliment on her new wardrobe, he promised her a few days ago that he would help her with her taijutsu. Even better, he wouldn't be able to properly spar with her because of his broken arm, but would be able to give out tips.

He would spar with her with his good arm and legs and still would beat the living daylights out of her. "Sakura-chan! You still need more speed and more power! One of my hits would probably equal to nine of yours." He said to her yesterday in the early morning.

Sakura remembered her mood drop some hundred points, "Thanks Lee." She deflated. Inner Sakura was too tired to come up with a better retort.

He tried to consol her, "Cheer up! Your youthfulness has grown ten fold since I have last seen you! You just need to practice!"

She bent over to try to catch her breath. "I'm still pretty weak though." She muttered, wiping sweat off her brow.

Lee gave her his patent giga-watt smile, "Not to worry, we just need to change a little bit of your katas." He made a 'come on' motion with his good hand, "Do the same thing again, but slower and more precise."

The koinichi straightened up and took a deep breath. And then she began her attacks again in earnest.

Spin, round kick, jump, forward punch, side kick, back round kick, back flip, axe kick, duck, an attempted upper cut… Lee tapped her lightly on the forehead again. She stopped. "That…" He began, "Is excellent! The flower blooms! You must have a name for this style. Like the Jyuuken! Call it the Haruno!" His teeth flashed in the light of a non-existent sunset that was behind him. "You are a member of the True Geniuses of Hard Work!!"

'_Ignore the last sentence._' "But, you blocked all my attacks." Sakura protested.

"I aim to be a taijutsu master," Lee replied, "But that is a great style, making a missed hit into something more dangerous. Instead of retreating, you went under the defenses: a brilliant way to take advantage of your mistakes!" They both sat down on the hard ground. The boy grabbed a nearby, long stick.

"It's like this," he explained, "Imagine that this stick is your extension from your body. All ninjas know that a true taijutsu master's strength comes from the deep earth." She nodded in comprehension.

"Yeah, and the energy from the earth rises up to your legs, and toward your torso where it can be concentrated." She recited Iruka's words from the Academy days.

He nodded happily, "And so when enough (youthful!) energy gets stored, the taijutsu master releases it in one devastating attack to bring forth his attack. So when one releases the energy to an arm, leg, head, he uses speed and strength to attack." He slammed the stick onto the dirt. It took a few seconds for the dust to settle.

"But," He shook the offending stick at Sakura's face, his eyebrows drew together, "here's the problem with you. There's not enough damage to go to the opponent. Especially when you have battle hardened enemies, such as samurais and enemy nins." Sakura nodded sheepishly. "Or, this happens." Lee used so much energy to slam the stick down that it broke in half.

The pink haired girl could only stare at the pieces, "That's going to happen?!"

"Don't fret! Even if your legs and arms get broken, I'm sure your spirit will never give up!"

No arms… no legs… just a head and torso yelling about the 'Springtime of Youth!' '_Ahhhh!_' "Lee!" She hid her face in her hands to try and escape the images.

He laughed. "It'll take practice for you to make sure that this won't happen. Training everyday lessens the chance of injury. But for now, I suggest a better idea." The boy slammed the shortened stick on the ground, "It takes less energy to hit the ground like this. See? The imprint now is deeper than the other."

'…_ohhhh._' The koinichi's face lit up in understanding, "So you're saying that I should use more knees and elbows."

He grinned, "Alternate, but be careful. That's all I have for you for now, your friend is coming." He pointed over her shoulder and she followed his gaze.

Ino was walking over, "Sakura! Team 10's meeting starts in ten minutes. Come on!"

Training Area 10 wasn't a long walk away. The time was probably around nine in the morning, but the day wasn't hot at all. "Time flies," Sakura whistled as she gazed at the sun, "Sorry about the abrupt ending. Bye." She stood up, dusted her pants, and smiled mischievously, "I totally owe you one, maybe a new hair cut." She giggled as she walked away from her friend who was nervously touching his bangs.

She skipped happily over, "Ino-pig! Did you pull another all-nighter, studying?"

"Medic nins have a hard life. Don't worry about me. You always manage to look more tired than I do, no matter how hard I work." She pouted, and then wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "So, Rock Lee and you?"

The pink haired girl was confused. "So?"

Her friend gestured for an answer impatiently to a seemly obvious question. "Finally over Sasuke? Are you guys together? Dating?"

She cocked her head to the right. "Dating?" She parroted. "I don't think so."

Ino rolled her eyes, "Well you didn't seem to be disgusted by that idea. Whatever." She changed the subject, "So what have you guys been doing?"

"Oh, it's awesome!" She gave a closed eyed smile, "He's helping me with this new taijutsu style that I'm developing right now."

"New taijutsu style…" Ino pondered. "I think that's right. Since ninja families usually have their own techniques passed down from generation to generation, I don't need to make one up. I never really thought about that."

Sakura felt inner self puff up with pride, "He's giving me advice on making it more powerful so I can kick your butt, Ino-pig."

"Ha ha, Forehead," The blonde said sarcastically, "If you forget, I'm training too. So other than taijutsu," she asked curiously, "What else have you been working on? I never see you working on new techniques but you always have something up your sleeve every time you spar with me."

"Eh heh," the pink haired genin rubbed the back of her head, "I usually work on them after dinner… Umm. Well, I don't have much chakra, but I did invent this cool new Katon jutsu that doesn't use so much of my reserves. I can use it about ten times a day before getting tired. But I haven't tried it on anyone yet."

Ino's eyes widened. "Spill. Now."

"It's not really a jutsu…" Sakura tried to explain. "So, I take my chakra, convert it to fire and then cover my hand with it, and then I punch something. I could do the same with my foot and kick with it. And if I push enough chakra through, I can burn a dummy's insides with this. Not much, but a concentrated area maybe about the size of, I don't know, an ANBU mask, turns charred. I haven't really figured out how it works on a person but…" A light bulb popped up over her head, "I can put it as a part of my taijutsu. It shouldn't be too hard if I just push my left foot forward and…" She started mumbling to herself.

Her friend nodded, puzzled, "Aren't you just manipulating chakra then, all you need is the Tiger seal."

"It takes three hand seals," Sakura amended, "I forgot to say that I take the fire chakra and almost solidify it into a short blade that extends," She punches, "From the top of my hand that stabs into the enemy and burns his insides. And if I do this," She pretends to use the Jyuuken, "the fire chakra will extend from my palms and I can actually shoot it at a relatively fast speed toward anything I want. The best thing is that it explodes on contact if I add in another Dragon seal at the end. The more chakra I use, the bigger the explosion."

"No kidding?"

The green eyed girl shook her head, now in 'lecture mode', "There are problems that I have to work on. Like, if I'm not careful, I can really burn my hand. I can't shoot my attack at really high speeds so it's easy to dodge. I still have to figure out how to slice with the fire blade so I can use it as a part of my taijutsu and get up close to the enemy ninjas." She unconsciously rubbed the top of her hands and yawned.

Her friend noticed her action, "But I can't see your burnt marks."

"If you treat the injuries quickly," Sakura informed her, "they're easier to heal."

Ino stared at her friend's hands and demanded, "Where did you learn that?" 'And how the hell can I see no difference between healed skin and healthy skin?' She asked herself.

Her friend blinked at the inquiry and thought long and hard. "Oh yeah. I got these scrolls from this jounin whom I met at this random bar while running away from these deranged nurses…" Sakura repeated her words to herself, "Random bar… Deranged nurses… That sounds awkward, heh heh. Anyways, he gave me these scrolls on medical stuff and while I was looking through them and I thought I'd try what's written on there."

Satisfied with the answer, Ino thought about the new information, then suggested, "Remember when I showed you all those diagrams on a person's organs and blood vessels? The hospital's just beginning to give us practical stuff and I'm learning the same things as you are, just practicing on fish. I thought that you wouldn't like it. How about," Her eyes lit up, "We can practice together when Asuma gives us time off!"

'_Shannaro!_' Inner Sakura cheered. "That's great," She readily agreed.

The blonde hugged her friend tightly, "My wittle Sakura-chan is growing up." She cooed. "I was trying to figure out that weird genjutsu you did on me yesterday and I find out that you're practicing taijutsu and making up new ninjutsus!"

"Ack! Ino, let me go!" She whined trying to escape her friend's grasp.

"Aww, our young childhood is slowing disappearing." Ino laughed, "I'll stop before I turn into Lee." She playfully ruffled Sakura's pink hair and announced. "We're here."

Asuma and Chouji were both enjoying the morning air under the shady tree. Chouji waved hello. The jounin smiled though his cigarette and greeted the newcomers.

"Team 10 is all here."

Sakura shook her head at the memory. She didn't feel like moving and could sympathize with Shikamaru and his lazy habits. The clouds were pretty, during the day or at night. The stars above her were winking at her, almost like they were telling her that they knew something important that she didn't.

She was proud of her recent improvements and felt herself getting stronger, like what both of her ex-teammates are with their respective sannins. 'Lucky bastards.' She exhaled, 'I might as just make do with what I have. I'll show them.'

She even has a special genjutsu that was created simply to confront her old crush, Sasuke Uchiha. She tested the effects on Ino two days ago with favorable results, well, as favorable results as a D-ranked jutsu can give.

She also managed a satisfactory Suzu: Riariti no Seijou that she read about in a scroll from the library just a few days ago. It's a pity that the library only shows the theory behind genjutsus and not how to teach a specific technique. That's ok though. Genjutsus are to her like sand is to Subaku no Gaara. They seemed so simple to create with her above average chakra control. It was all about manipulating the victim's perception and senses. It was an art form to her, delicate details to make fantasy seem like a reality, where imagination counts.

Stretching her arms and legs, the genin gave a yawn, _'I don't remember ever staying up this late before. It's probably just before midnight. I should probably go to sleep since Asuma-sensei promised us a B-mission tomorrow. I should go.'_

'_Home.'_

She froze. "Home?" She tested the words on her lips hesitantly and softly. The word tasted disgusting on her tongue, rotten and demonic.

'_I have a home?_' She thought dazedly. Her head had a brief stab of pain. Her mind flashed toward two tall figures' silhouettes.

"What to do with you, Sakura?"

"What can we do?"

The girl squinted as the two voices passed though her conscience. 'It's just a migraine, I need more sleep." She sat up and looked over the roof.

Civilians and ninjas were going about their daily lives. Most were heading home for the night.

'_Home._' Something nagged to her in her conscience.

'_What home?_'

As her body started to move on its own, and her mind became fuzzy, she dimly noticed that Inner Sakura was silent lately.

"_**Are you sure you're not going to finish that?"- Chouji**_

"The special B-mission for the day is…" Asuma paused for theatrical effect, "We're stealing a sealed scroll from a storage vault of an Amekagure noble! It's about two hours travel from here if we move quickly. Our clients need that scroll by mid-afternoon." He tossed the mission scroll to Ino who caught it with surprise, "Memorize the map and instructions and then destroy it. You'll be our leader for today." She nodded happily at the turn of events. Sakura and Chouji cheered with joy. He studied his genins and winked, "Everyone packed? Good, let's move out!"

Ino used a small Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu to burn the scroll. "Ok! I'll be leading the way. Sakura, you're with me to help detect any genjutsus we might encounter. Chouji, get behind us in case we need you. Asuma-sensei can guard the rear." Chouji gave a thumbs-up and Sakura laughed at her friend's bossy tone.

The ninjas walked past the gate, and then disappeared into the forest.

Fifteen minutes in, the blonde whispered to her partner worryingly. "Ok there Forehead?"

"Yeah, why?" She mumbled.

Ino had a doubtful look on her face, "because you've been looking worst for the wear. You're always tired and, oh my god, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?" She hissed.

"I've always been like this. Ok, so I slept at a later time yesterday, so I didn't get enough sleep." Sakura defended herself.

"But it's nine in the morning. You should be fine." She insisted.

Sakura pretended not to hear her. "And people don't notice because I hide the circles under my eyes with makeup. I ran out on Monday and didn't have time to buy a new supply." She held back a yawn.

"You mean you've always been like this?"

"No! Just, since the chunin exams. I've been feeling tired, that's all…" She lowered her head slightly, "At least I'm not like Sabaku no Gaara right? He has panda eyes!"

Ino didn't say anything, and there was only silence for the rest of the way.

Sakrua wondered about the weird conversation she had a minute ago. Her friend's acting like she, Sakura, had something to hide, which is a ludicrous idea. She doesn't have any little secrets, then why is Ino acting so weird? '_Maybe this is a way to show that she cares,_' she mused to herself.

'_I bet she's just agitated being the leader for a B-mission. We're acting like chunins right now and it's her first time in a leadership role since Asuma-sensei decided to only support the team, so she's just taking her job seriously. She's assessing her comrades' abilities and thinking about how we can contribute to the mission.'_

Ino probably had some advice from her Shikamaru on what to do in these situations. Everybody was excited. Hell, even Chouji admitted that he couldn't eat breakfast today.

Chouji always eats breakfast.

In a way, Asuma-sensei had given the reigns to the whole team. The genins had freedom to work together, with Ino as leader, to create strategies and plan the infiltration. Sakura was feeling giddily with anticipation, _'What will happen? What will happen?_'

"_**We need codenames, in case someone hacks into our radio frequency. I'll be Flower, for obvious reasons. Asuma-sensei's codename is Smokey, not hard to forget. Sakura can be, since pink is too easy, Green, for her eyes. Chouji is Skinny because he's… well… not." – Ino**_

The building was an unassuming block of stone between the marketplace and a residential neighborhood. Nobody ever takes notice of the architectural nightmare, probably by a minor area illusion that would turn any nearby observer's attention away from itself. There were no windows and only a single door. The whole place was surrounded by a high wall of two feet thick concrete. There were two guards in front of the small walkway.

At least, there were suppose to be two guards in front of the walkway. The poor men never knew what hit them.

The team was gathered behind the wall, out of sight, and examined their handiwork. Sakura already had the place under a standard Suzu: Riariti no Seijou. Knocking out both guards at the doorway was not hard at all. The men were both stuck underground with the help of the Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu from Asuma. Sakura was wearing one of the guard's clothes and had henged herself into his appearance.

Ino pulled out of one of the guard's mind and looked up, "The outer guards aren't ninjas but the inside security has about thirty ninjas, probably mid-chunin level. The ninjas were specially chosen to detect any chakra, or movements in the shadows so attacking undetected is probably out of the question. If Skinny and Smokey can catch them by surprise then we shouldn't have too much problems." Sakura did a mock salute. "Ok, Green, you know what to do."

Sakura nodded and started her hand seals: Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Tiger, Serpent, and added two more layers to her Suzu: Riariti no Seijou. The air shimmered with faint chakra. Asuma placed his hands on the ground to create a perfect doton-bunshin of the guard. The pink haired girl placed a gag and a blindfold on both of the guards and henged their heads into two tuffs of grass. Asuma examined her handiwork, "nice, three henges in a three layer genjutsu."

Ino made a motion, "Smokey, get up in the tree. Green, make sure that nobody gets near this place and keep watch in case. The mission scroll said that there should be no ninjas in the neighborhood but I'm not taking the chance, especially with our luck..." There was an uncomfortable pause, but she continued, "If there's a problem…" She tapped on her headset. Sakura tapped on her own headset and nodded.

Sakura took her place at the gate with her back to her teammates. The headsets cracked to life. She could hear her team's faint whispers and faint shuffling movements. She looked at the street in front of her. Most of the people were merchants selling their wares and children playing with a ball by a garden. There was a group of mothers sitting around an outdoor table gossiping and knitting.

"We're in the building. Visibility is low. They're right under us, we haven't been sighted yet," Asuma's low voice crackled over the radio headset, easily mistaken for a gentle wind blowing.

"Brown, Smokey, make it quick, don't bother shutting them up, I'm right behind you," The green-eyed genin heard in her ear, and wondered if Asuma-sensei should start teaching them hand communication signs, "On three… One… Two… Go." There were yells of surprise and grunts of pain. She heard two big crashing noises and a low rumble. The 'guard' whistled to 'him' self and casually looked around.

Her illusion was working perfectly. No one even glanced over in her direction. It was right after the guards had switched, so her comrades should have ample time to get in, attack, grab scroll, and get out.

"Skinny, duck!"

The guard's uniform sure was hot and stuffy. Why did they have to wear so many layers anyways? She felt like she was sweating buckets with all the weight on her.

"Flower, have you gotten the combination yet?"

Was she supposed to be insulted that she was chosen as a patrol? Last time she was took on the role; she received a surprised ambush by some Kusa nins. She managed to hold them back by a combination of mirrors, sunlight, convex and concave lenses, and genjutsu before her team could get back support her. Ino had come away with a broken arm and a nasty gash in her shoulder.

She heard a muffled scream in her ear right after Chouji shouting, "Baika no Jutsu!"

That was the mission where the mission scroll assured the team that there were no other ninjas in the vicinity. Because of that incident, Team 10 never goes anywhere without their special headsets.

"Flower, give me a hand with this guy!"

Though Kakashi-sensei always thought that it was funny for some odd reason to have Team 7 use them during the Lost Pet: Tora missions… '_Cha, jounins_.' Inner Sakura scoffed.

"I got past the vault door." Ino's voice whispered, "The scroll is supposed to be red with a green label on it." There was a whistle, "Skinny and Smokey, get the scroll, I'm going to wipe out the memories of the guys who'd seen us."

A group of young women walked past the 'guard' giggling and giving flirtatious glances to 'him'. Sakura's right eye twitched.

"How can you find one single scroll in this huge chamber?"

"Try the book shelves," came the helpful answer.

Wait a moment. The genjutsu that this place had before Team 10 got here was never dispelled. The special jutsu's purpose was to have ordinary civilians look away from the gate.

Sakura blinked. Nope, the group of young women was still in front of her. But this time, she noticed their faces that were hiding under a henge seem to distort under her gaze. Her hands started to feel clammy as she fingered her kunai under her own henged appearance.

Did the ninjas know who she was under the disguise? How long will they wait before taking action? Should she give out the alarm to her teammates?

"Ok, we found the damn scroll and Flower's just about finished cleaning up. Green, what's your status?"

The ninjas in front of her were only supposed to be a distraction. That means that her position wasn't compromised… yet. But they should know that 'the guard' knows that the group in front of 'him' isn't normal. Oh wait; they were taking advantage of the fact that 'he's a male.' The group of unknown ninjas had their own genjutsu on their faces to make themselves seem irresistible. The group of 'women' were touching the 'guard's' arms and purring out flattering compliments about 'his manly attributes.'

'_Ok, this is awkward…_'

"Green, are you there?"

Thank goodness that nobody else could hear Asuma.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a shinobi getting past her in the shadows. How to alert her team? Should she make a move now?

Decisions, decisions.

"Flower, Green isn't responding. Something could be wrong."

"Well, shit." Sakura muttered into her mouthpiece, and that was the only warning she gave before flinging a kunai at the unknown ninja's Achilles' tendon. The ninja crumpled to the ground yelling in pain.

"Green! Is that you? What's going on?!"

The henged group of ninjas' looked surprised but didn't waste any of their time. They dropped the henge, revealing ninja headbands with a familiar inscription. "Flower, situation code red! I have about eleven Oto-nins in front of me. One down at my right. I need backup!" Sakura dropped her own henge and started her hand seals behind her back.

Ram, Boar, Ox, Dog, Serpent.

"What? Get her!" Five Otogakure ninjas threw their own kunais at her. But Sakura had already switched herself with a nearby log.

Thunk, Thunk, Thunk, Thunk, Thunk.

"Status, Green! I need Status!"

"I'm here, I'm ok. Their rank is probably ranging from high chunin to low jounin. I'm trying to hold them back, but it's not easy." She spoke in a hurried manner. "I don't have much information on their fighting styles."

'_If I engage them with hand to hand combat, I can probably bring down a few ninjas, but most will get behind me. They haven't separated yet, they probably didn't plan for another ninja team to intercept them…_' She jumped up to a branch and threw five kunais down at them. "I need help. Get over here!" She hissed into the mouthpiece.

The Sound nins easily dodged them and smirked at the genin. "The little koinichi wants to play with us!" They mocked. "Get down so we can show you how we have fun." Sakura leaped off her perch and onto the ground a good distance from her attackers. She put her hands up in a Monkey, Rat, Bird, then Tiger seal, and concentrated her chakra onto the kunais.

"Activate." Their smirks faltered slightly, one of them yelled to take cover.

BOOM.

The dust revealed only the outlines of some of the ninjas. She didn't wait to see her results but held out her hands, did some seals, and whispered, "Katon." A fireball appeared in each hand, she fired her right fireball into the smoke.

BOOM.

The problem is that she only saw about five outlines in the dust cloud and she wasn't even sure if they were henged logs, bunshins, or real nins. The girl looked around, so where are the others? Her hands were twitching like crazy.

Most likely, the Oto-nins would come up to her from…

Asuma knocked the pink haired genin out of the way. Sakura's ball of fire chakra dissipated and was absorbed back into her system. She shook her head to collect her bearings and found herself under a tree with the jounin. She saw Ino and Chouji fighting back to back; the pair was outnumbered three to one. "Green," Asuma asked while pulling her to her feet, "How's the illusion holding?" His face was twisted into a serious frown that reflected the situation that Team 10 was in.

Sakura took out two kunais, "Nobody dispelled it yet, so the regular people shouldn't notice a thing, unless there are more ninjas outside. I don't think Otogakure wants to put up an announcement that they're here." Four Oto-nins rushed toward them.

Asuma nodded, "My thoughts exactly." His hands moved into a crossed-finger seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," He shouted. Three copies of the jounin-sensei popped up beside him. "Sakura, knock out as many as you can," he ordered.

She obeyed, "hai." She made her own handseals: Dragon, Dog, Ram, and whispered, "Katon." Her chakra extended out of her right hand and turned into a fire blade. She directed some chakra to her feet and rushed toward her opponents, barely nicking a shinobi across the stomach. He winced slightly.

The koinichi jumped onto the shinobi's shoulder and lunged forward, thrusting her fire blade through the forehead of the unprepared ninja running behind him.

She watched her opponent's eyes roll to the back of his head and make a gagging noise. She pulled her fire blade out of his head. There was a smell in the air.

'_Charred flesh? Yes, I would like some fried brains please…'_

Sakura twisted to parry a blow from a Sound koinichi with her kunai. Her mind was numb. It was just Inner Sakura yelling out insults, _'Take that you little fucktard, I'll show you fun!'_

Punch, duck, elbow to the solar plexus, knee to the chin, kick the head back, dodge to the right… Lee was right; it was a whole lot easier to make hits with her elbows and knees. The Oto koinichi managed to stick two small shurikens into her shoulder but, to Sakura's satisfaction, was sporting some broken ribs, a black eye, and a broken jaw.

She tried to chop at her enemy's shoulders and collar bone, but the Oto-nin jumped back and started a jutsu. "**Shougekiha no Jutsu**!" She yelled. The genin's eyes widened and jumped to the side, feeling a shockwave brush past her shoulder.

"What the-"

"**Shougekiha no Jutsu**!" This time, the genin threw her self to the ground and gulped when she felt the blast over her head. She looked up and saw the wide grin on her opponents face.

'_Damn it!_' Inner Sakura cursed, '_We don't have any long distance attack jutsus except for that fireball. But that's no use because that technique will either be blown away or blow up in our faces by that stupid attack.'_

'_I wonder how much chakra it uses. If I avoid it long enough, if she's dumb enough, she'll run out of chakra. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.' _Sakura thought. '_It looks like she has to have some time to recover between the jutsu in order to repeat it. How long will she stay still after a hit?'_

'_I wonder if…'_

"**Shougekiha no Jutsu**!"

'…_Well, I can try.'_

The green eyed girl took a deep breath, "Here goes nothing," she muttered. She ran directly towards the blast and front-flipped into the air.

Rabbit, Serpent.

She concentrated chakra into her feet and the air under her sandals, pushed off, and disappeared. She reappeared behind the Oto-nin who was frozen, ready to deal a blow to the back of her neck…

Clang!

Except somebody blocked her kunai with a katana. The genin's eyes followed the sword up to the hand, to the arm, to the face. Double-take, '_eh?_' Disbelief was laced in her voice. "Sasuke?!" She could almost see Inner Sakura slap her own forehead, '_Idiot! Otogakure ninjas, of course there's a chance he'll be here!_'

The green eyed genin shook her head and recollected her thought. '_Get a hold of your self. Sasuke's here! Now's my chance!_' The pink haired genin brought her fist up to punch him. He grabbed her wrist in an almost lazy fashion. Instantly, the background around the two ninjas collapsed to the ground, revealing nothing but each other and darkness. '_Bingo._' Inner Sakura said with glee. The boy froze.

"Hello," Sakura greeted him. Her voice was weak, like an echo in the genjutsu realm. Her lips never moved, but rather her thoughts spoke for themselves.

His eyes narrowed. "What did you do?" He demanded in his head.

Then, her aura changed; her green eyes were clearer, the koinichi suddenly looked more confident and aware. He noticed that her voice was sharper as she asked him, "Do you like my genjutsu? I created it especially for you. I created it especially for an occasion like this." She stared into his eyes, but was like a statue.

"What did you do?" He asked again, more slowly with a dangerous undertone.

There was a triumphant gleam in her eye, "Impatience is unbecoming Sasuke-kun." She emphasized the last syllable. "I probably won't use it again because of the stupidity behind it, but it gets the job I want done." He could imagine her smirk on her face, "You see, I altered your time perception in your brain. All it requires is a simple touch, and then, one second in the outside world becomes an hour in our heads."

That sounds very familiar to the Uchiha, 'Tsukuyomi?' He wondered, but didn't think aloud. 'The girl in front of me…' He thought.

Her green eyes flashed with happiness, "You should feel special, and it's custom-made, if you will, so your Doujutsu won't disable it." Inner Sakura smiled inwardly. It was a curious technique. It's like Kagemane, the user has the freedom to move, but if said user moves, then the victim can too, and in anyway the victim so chooses. But if the user stays still, then the victim's limbs would stay still. So if Inner Sakura moves just for slight second, or just an inch, Sasuke can take the chance to rip him self out of her grasp.

Naiteki/Sakura had racked her brains coming up with a genjutsu that won't be destroyed by the Sharingan and wouldn't use us so much of her precious chakra from her reserves. The **ichinichihenji** no jutsu can only influence a person's sense of being, or time. Before Sakura tried to punch her ex-teammate, her hands had moved into a quick Hebi seal to lead her chakra into Sasuke. And because her chakra doesn't influence the air but goes directly into his head, the Sharingan can't do anything about it.

The girl that he had known for a long time seemed off. "You're not Sakura." The Uchiha boy told her.

"Cha, yes I am."

"You don't act like her at all." He vaguely recalled an annoying pink haired fangirl falling over heads over heels to try and cater to his every whim. He imagined a pink haired genin asking him over and over again, day after day without fail, for a date, and being crushed when rejected, but never faltered in her pursuits of her crush. He remembered, the day he deflected to Otogakure, a girl telling him that she loved him and would follow him to his life's goal if he would just let her. He remembered knocking the girl out cold before leaving.

He was sure, this wasn't Sakura Haruno.

"I'm Sakura." There was irritation in her voice, "I'm a part of her."

"A part?"

"Whatever." She ignored the last inquiry and began on another subject. "I'm going to switch back, and you better answer my question." She calculated in her head, 'it'll probably take one second for someone outside to reach us, one hour in my genjutsu. I should have enough time.'

"Question?"

Sakura's eyes turned duller. Sasuke noticed the slight circles under her eyes. The aura around her seemed to be less pronounced and more tired. Her voice was hollower, but they carried a determined edge, "Why did Team 7 break apart?" She demanded.

He was caught off guard, expecting to be interrogated with some inner secrets from Sound, he didn't prepare for the question. "What?"

"Why did Team 7 have a fall out? Why the other teams, 10 and 8, all are are so close to one another. What happened?"

Sasuke didn't answer.

But Sakura continued, "Was it somebody's fault? Naruto, for being loud and obnoxious? Kakashi-sensei, for favoring and only giving special training to you? You, for running away and refusing to really socialize with anyone? Me, for always asking you on dates, trying to gain your favor, and generally ignoring Naruto's presence?" Her voice echoed in the air with a slight hysterical edge, reflecting her hidden guilt.

There was silence, before the Uchiha said as finality, "There never was a team to begin with. We never could have been a coherent team. I merely gave up from the beginning."

Sasuke didn't move when she nodded, "Ahh, I see." He was perhaps stunned at his own answer. She pulled back and jumped back. "Thanks." She muttered. Sasuke's surroundings suddenly became light and faded to reveal dead and injured Oto-nins.

"Fuuton: Kakuheki Bakuhatsu no Jutsu!" Sasuke heard. A large and very wide transparent wall of condensed air was sculpted by Asuma's wind chakra, and then rushed to the Uchiha at a high speed.

Sakura, who felt the immense power prickling her spine, had turned away from the shinobis and stabbed the Sound koinichi toward the back of her neck, aiming to sever the spinal nerves, the koinichi flinched once, twice, and then fell, dead.

Sasuke jumped away from the incoming attack and activated his Sharingan, he was being pushed back by the bearded jounin, and "I'm your opponent." Asuma said. Two kunais in his hand, he was relentless in his attacks, "Don't fight him!" He yelled to the genins, "His strength is unknown, don't take the chance!"

Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" Sasuke yelled out as he tapped the ground twice with his right foot. A two-headed snake the size of a shed exploded out of the dirt toward the bearded jounin, who tensed up, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Ino rushed over to her friend, "Sakura! Are you alright?" She and Chouji dragged her friend away from the fray. The Akimichi wordlessly offered the pink haired girl a soldier pill, which she took. The three genins watched their jounin-sensei battle it out with Orochimaru's apprentice, who was using his best jutsus from his arsenal. "I think that Asuma-sensei thinks that he can bring Sasuke back to Konoha." Ino remarked, observing the battle.

Chouji snorted, "And to have him run away?"

It was clear that the ex-Konoha shinobi was loosing badly. Sakura felt very dazed, her adrenaline rush was over, her limbs felt numb, and her head felt heavy. She blacked out.

"_**Oh for Kami's sake, you have got to be kidding me…" – An Amekagure noble, after seeing his property under a triple layer wide-field genjutsu, Sound nins who are either dead or too injured to move by the gateway, his two guards under a henge with only their heads visible from the ground gagged and blindfolded, and all his ninjas in the building out cold, his vault broken in, and his precious seal scroll stolen.**_

"If I had known that Sasuke Uchiha had a support team behind him, I would've pressed my attacks harder, regardless of the Sharingan. But the Sound-nins came and they took him and retreated back to wherever they came from." Asuma finished his report to the Godaime. He tossed her the seal scroll.

Tsunade caught it with one hand and gave it to Shizune, "It interests me to think, that instead of fighting, the Oto-nins would back away from us. That, to Orochimaru, would show weakness, so there has to be a reason why they didn't continue to engage your team in a fight."

The jounin nodded, "I also was wondering why, because it seems to me that they could've seriously injured or killed my team. The Sound-nins were communicating by hand signs so I couldn't decipher their words. But the Uchiha didn't seem happy to be told to withdraw."

She tapped her fingers on her desk, "I'll look deeper into it. I'll give you my suspicions later."

Shizune examined the genins of Team 10 behind Asuma, "Does anybody need to be treated at the hospital?"

Chouji, Ino, and Sakura looked at one another. They were sitting on the chairs away from the desk. Their backs were to the large windows that overlooked the whole village. Ino spoke for her teammates, "Just a few lacerations and puncture wounds. Sakura had pretty bad chakra exhaustion but she's ok now. Chouji is only slightly hurt. We'll be fine Shizune-san."

The hokage was satisfied with the report. "Team 10, congratulations on the completion of your first independent B-mission. Asuma said that you all handled the situation very well. You are dismissed." The genins high-fived each other and walked out of the door with the bearded jounin behind them.

"Wait, Asuma." The jounin stopped at the doorway. "I want you to keep watch over them. Tell them to be more careful of their surroundings," the Slug Sannin warned him. He agreed to her words.

The door closed. Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose and pulled out her bottle of sake from underneath the desk, "What do you think, Shizune?"

"_**We're Team 10! We're fine. Konohakagure doesn't need Sasuke Uchiha anymore, right Sakura?" – Ino**_

"I think that Kami has helped me in this matter. She's part of Asuma's team now. She and that Yamanaka mind-walker are on the same team." Kabuto's eyes glinted behind his glasses, "It'll be soon Orochimaru-sama."

Orochimaru laughed, "Plan your strategy to the last detail, Kabuto. I can't afford any mistakes."

"Of course."

To Be Continued…

Glossary

**Jyuuken**. Taijutsu- Gentle Fist Style. Hyuuga clan.

**Suzu: Riariti no Seijou**. Illusion: Normal Reality. Standard high C-rank genjutsu which makes people in the jutsu believe that everything they see and hear, is ordinary. Sakura's chakra control can make this genjutsu unnoticeable to an unsuspecting ninja.

**Katon**. Fire Style. Sakura's personal technique. Explained above.

**Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu**. B-rank. Earth Release- Inner Decapitation Technique.

**Doton B****unshin no Jutsu**. B-rank. Earth Clone.

**Henge**. E-rank. Transformation.

**Baika no Jutsu**. Multi-Size Technique. Akimichi clan.

**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu**. B-rank. Shadow Clone Technique.

**Shougekiha no Jutsu****. High B-rank. Shock Wave Technique. Blasts the opponent away. Powerful but can only go in a straight direction.**

**Ichinichihenji** no Jutsu. D-rank. Short Time Technique. Sakura's personal technique. You can communicate with the person you touch via mind link. It's totally useless. This jutsu leaves the user totally vulnerable to people other than the single person you touch and it sucks chakra continuously. It bends time: one hour in the mind is roughly one hour in the real world. The user is not allowed to move at all unless they want their victims to also be able to move. One twitch and it's all over.

**Fuuton: Kakuheki Bakuhatsu no Jutsu**. A-rank. Wind Release- Barrier Wall Eruption Technique. The powerful attack covers a wide distance but can only go in a straight direction.

**Kuchiyose no Jutsu**. C to S-rank. Summoning Technique.


	4. Catharsis Three

_**Author notes… In my opinion, Taijutsu styles have no rankings. I don't own Naruto. I also stole a quote from Shakespeare, if you can find it; I'll give you an imaginary cookie. My japanese is non-existent, nada, nothing. So I made up the jutsus with the help of the online japanese translator and I'm sure that I got something wrong, so if you can tell me what's right... uhhhh, I'll review 2 of your stories ^O^**_

_**What irks me: it's those really eye-catching side ads on fanfiction that have pretty pictures of anime… and I don't want to stare at them but I still do. So freaking distracting. At first it was Ouran High School Host Club, and now it's this, I guess sort of fanservice, called Negima.**_

"_**Hold up, what's going on?"- Ino**_

'It's as if life after the chunin exams suddenly decided to overdose on soldier pills,' Ino thought. Life changed into something different, some were for the better and some were for the worst. The biggest change was the fact that her newly instated best friend, Sakura Haruno, was the new genin member for Team 10. Ino smiled happily to herself.

Forehead girl was funny and smart, and a great asset for the Team. She molded into the Team so well… and yet it was too well, and Sakura seemed… off. The blonde girl racked her head for the proper word to describe her teammate- dazed.

Forehead girl was very dazed.

_**Chapter 4… Catharsis Three**_

"_**I'll show her, trying to fucking invade my personality. Yamanaka's getting her ass kicked, NOW!!"- Naiteki during the chunin exam preliminaries**_

"And… it was really weird." Ino described her experience of the chunin preliminaries to the bearded jounin. "I even cut off my hair to make sure that she would stay in place so I could enter her head and make her surrender."

"But you didn't," Asuma said moving the cigarette to the side of his mouth.

"Right," She agreed, "I got into her head, and I was just about to raise my hand but then… It, where ever I was, in her mind, got bigger, and this girl just runs towards me, screaming her head off and body slamming me out of the mindscape." She paused, "The girl looked exactly like Sakura, except it can't be Sakura because I'm in Sakura… But she was wearing the exact same clothes."

Chouji just laughed.

The three ninjas were sitting on some large rocks that were scattered around Training Area 10, waiting for the pink haired koinichi to arrive. The air felt muggy, still late summer, and it was certain that there would be a storm rolling in around the afternoon. But for now, there were three ninjas waiting for their remaining teammate to come, with Asuma hoping that the new team member haven't picked up habits from her old sensei, Hatake Kakashi. He watched his student close her pale blue eyes, "That girl wasn't corporeal though. She was all black: hair, skin, eyes, clothes. Without the white outline around her, you would think that she was part of the mindscape. She wasn't Sakura, and didn't act like Sakura since she was being more threatening."

Sarutobi Asuma scratched his face in thought, "That could be her inner personality, a way to cope with the ninja life," His students looked curious, "since in the end, every shinobi and koinichi has one." He leaned back to observe the clouds. "It's rare now to see a battle-weary ninja without a coping method. Our duty takes a harsh toll on our lives, and we try everyway to keep from going mad." He said gravely.

"Then your way to cope, sensei, is to smoke?" The rotund genin asked as he finished his breakfast.

"Right, each way to cope with the missions and the job hazards are unique." Asuma nodded and took out his cigarette to exhale a small cloud of smoke. He smothered the tip, "Some other ways would be reading porn novels, or spying on naked women, getting drunk on sake, staring at clouds, playing with flowers, eating, or developing an inside mind." He scratched his chin thoughtfully and remarked, "It's surprising to hear that you can't use Shintenshin no Jutsu properly on her. To overcome a Yamanaka mind jutsu, one's will power needs to be significantly larger than the Yamanaka's and Sakura doesn't seem to be the type to be mentally strong. Then again, underneath the underneath, she had an inner mind, quite unlike other ninjas who were subjected under the Shintenshin no jutsu."

"But it doesn't seem like she has an inner mind to cope," Ino protested, "Asuma-sensei, it's almost like a split personali-." She stopped talking and looked around.

Speak of the devil; Sakura was heading their way holding up two, big, fresh fish, grinning happily. There were dark circles under her eyes which seemed weary and tired. 'Does she get enough sleep these days?' The blonde genin wondered for the umpteenth time. 'Is she's hiding something from the rest of us?'

'But is it important? Am I being too nosy and suspicious? We are a team and we are all close, but she isn't. She seems to be close, but she's really distant.' Ino mentally sighed, 'her dumb ex-teammates left her scarred before Team 7 officially disbanded. Everybody on her old team abandoned her. If it was me, I would kick them all in the nuts before seeing them off. She's wary of a new team.' Ino schooled her face to an expression of cheerfulness.

"Hey guys!" Sakura waved, "I got some carp, since Ino-pig said that sensei was letting us practice for some time today on medical jutsus." The older ninja blinked, distantly remembering mentioning something about medics needing practice some days ago.

She sat down next to her close friend and Team 10 gathered around the fishes, "I was reading in the scroll that that jounin gave me, and guess what I found, Ino? Medics-in-training first practice on dead animals. I got these that we can practice on!"

Something tickled in her mind. "Didn't I already mention that to you before?"

Sakura shrugged, "Oh, right. Well, here they are!" The fish were thrown to the ground in a squishy-slap noise. There was a curious lapse of silence.

Ino stared at the two dead fish that, she now noticed, were attracting flies and she wrinkled her nose. They smell really bad. She looked at Asuma-sensei who was staring at the fish in morbid curiosity. She looked at Chouji who was getting a bit green in the face and whispering, "I think I'm going to be sick…" Ino rushed to try and aid her friend in containing his breakfast.

"Uh, Forehead?" She decided to tread cautiously as she rubbed soothing circles on Chouji's back.

"Not you too Ino-pig," She groaned, her face dropped, "It's enough that Chouji-kun looks like he's going to blow any minute now. And… Hey Chouji-kun, you might want to turn around and take deep breaths…" Chouji shook his head, "No? Whatever. But as a medic hopeful, Ino-pig," She pointed toward the friend, making the Yamanaka go cross-eyed, "You have to get used to this, they do this a lot."

"Wha? But."

"But nothing. Medics have to prepare for everything, I mean, what if you had to deal with this arm that was alive but rotting, like the fish? Bear through it and hope for the best. But don't worry; I heard from the nurses at the hospital that it's normal for people to get nauseous when they first start out. I think it's disgusting too, but I pushed my feelings aside to get professional." She took out a kunai, "Check it out Lesson one," She paused in thought for a while, "Oh right, in the scroll, it says that when I cut into the fish, you'll be required to use your chakra and try and mend it back together, ready?"

"Wait, Sakura, are you sure about this?" The blonde shot an uneasy glance toward Asuma and Chouji, who was getting greener by the second.

She snorted, "Ino, this is medical jutsu meaning that it's not going to blow up or anything, what can go wrong?" The kunai glided over a fish's scaly but smooth skin. At this moment, Ino remembered multiple mentors in her medic orientation reminding the young medic hopefuls such as her to always clean and gut dead animals before using them to practice Shosen no Jutsu, but it was too late.

Yellow pus like substance and maggots flew out and landed on Chouji's face setting off a chain reaction which involved puke, dirt, fish, pus, kunais, screaming, flies and some goat cheese. Afterwards, Ino, who was in a desperate need of a shower, glared at the horrified but amused Sakura Haruno, who somehow managed to come out of the incident squeaky clean, and declared, "This is your entire fault."

"I was the one carrying them here; it took me an entire hour to convince my self to carry them by the tail here from this desperate seller." Sakura heatedly defended her self. Ino had a mental picture of her friend hopping from foot to foot debating with her self on whether to take the fish or not, then closing her eyes in disgust as she grabbed onto two of them and made her way through Konoha. "But yeah, we do need better planning next time," the admittance came.

After cleaning up, the rest of the day for the genins progressed without an accident.

Ino was happy the way team dynamics were playing out. It turns out, after the second try by Sakura to use fish to practice on; their Jounin sensei had immediately realized what needed to be improved on in Team 10.

Ino was given special leaf sessions to refine her chakra control while Sakura was building up her chakra reserves by a new method called water walking. The green eyed girl complained about water walking, often getting tired after emitting chakra for only ten minutes. Her stamina was pitiful but her control was unreal.

Still, Team 10 improved. Ino's chakra was more precise, Sakura had more endurance, and even Chouji was building his skills after Sakura managed to cajole him onto the water to join her. Days later, Chouji was able to use Baika no Jutsu and was rolling around like a ball around the water. Sakura, who could now water walk for two hours straight, would have fun jumping on the water and using her male teammate as a barrel where she would direct him where to go by running on him. There was lots of laughter involved and it was certainly a sight to see, a win-win situation, as it helped both genins with their training.

And between everything were those pesky, frivolous D-missions which included weeding, shopping, taking out the trash, sweeping, babysitting, and at one point, looking all over Konoha trying to find a 'lucky' pencil which was finally found holding up the client's hair bun. Ninjas often, when no civilians are around, wonder about some of those with questionable intelligence, and then wonder whether civilians often, when no ninjas are around, wonder about some of those with questionable sanity.

It was when the training ended did Ino worry. Team 10, including Nara Shikamaru, has made a habit to eat dinner together everyday; Sakura never joined in on this team bonding activity. At first, that was ok, Ino thought that once Sakura got comfortable with her new life, she would join her and Team 10. She was wrong. Days passed, weeks passed, Sakura held onto a silent, stubborn refusal to eat with them. Why, Ino would never know, but the sight of the pink haired girl waving goodbye to her felt disturbing.

It was another ordinary day of training except that Asuma was having a private meeting with the Hokage. Ino was attempting to float seven blades of grass that on her face and Chouji was sparring with Sakura. "After our training session is over," Ino asked, looking slightly cross-eyed in concentration, "do you think we can beg a B-rank mission from sensei tomorrow?"

Her two teammates stopped fighting. "B-rank?" Chouji parroted.

"Ino-pig, we'll be lucky if we can get a C-mission." Sakura piped up. Asuma-sensei had requested D-missions for Team 10 of the late. All three genins thought that it had something to do with the Uchiha in their last B-mission, but none of them were sure, and the jounin was tight-lipped about it. What the genins did know was that Asuma-sensei was turning training into a mock ANBU boot camp. Training sessions used up more energy and nowadays, it took a considerable less amount of time to fall asleep. All three genins winced at the memories of their sensei giving them exercises similar to what Rock Lee might do while being sugar-high and almost impossible tasks such as climbing up the side of the hokage monument with a two hundred pound weights for each hand, no chakra.

Ino's attention wavered for a second and she quickly regained it back, but a blade of grass shot off her skin and landed a few feet away from her. She grumbled curses as she plucked a grass from the ground and slowly placed it on her cheek and channeled her chakra. "We had another big batch of D-missions today; I don't think I can take anymore. If I'm not using my brain; it'll shrink sooner or later."

Sakura smiled ruefully, "One day, I'm going to look back on all of this and decide that all those lazy villagers that request D-missions should be punished severely."

"Like, severely punished in a, you clean your own dog's crap and buy groceries and chase that damn cat, type of punish." Ino muttered.

The other girl's eyes were lit up in a green vengeful fire, "Like, run forty laps around Konoha and then make them do these house chores, see how they would like it."

"Heh heh, they would probably be drop dead tired after only the second lap."

Chouji rolled his eyes, "They're only villagers, and it's not like they're not planning your demise." He took from his pocket a chip bag, opened it, popped a chip into his mouth, and crunched.

"Yes they are!" The two girls shouted in sync. The Akimichi could only raise his hands in defense. Sakura walked over and sat next to Ino.

Ino closed her eyes, "It's a conspiracy between the villagers and Asuma-sensei, none of the others of the Rookie Nine have as many unsavory D-missions as many as we do."

Sakura hugged her knees as she recited, "Baby-sit bratty toddlers, planting trees, weeding vegetable gardens, finding lost personal items, finding runaway pets, raking leaves, scrubbing toilets, sweeping kitchens, patching roofs, buying groceries, cleaning old people, posing as moving targets for the Academy students…" All three genins shuddered.

"Honestly," Ino muttered, stopping her chakra control exercises, "can't they do a Kage Bunshin or something?"

Chouji shook his head, still eating from his bag of chips. "I think the teachers would call this sort of thing retribution… payback… karma…" His voice lowered melodramatically.

"What did I do to deserve this from them?" Ino whined.

Chouji and Sakura were careful not to meet each others' eyes.

Team 10 rested in silence, resting and recovering. They then resumed training. Sakura and Chouji went back to their area and continued sparring while Ino picked up some blades of grass.

Some hours later, Ino glanced at the sun, "It's getting late, we already stopped training, let's call it a day." Her teammates agreed. She looked hopefully to her female friend, "Forehead, are you going to join us? Shika-kun and Asuma-sensei will meet us later, we're eating at Chouji's family restaurant this time." 'Please don't leave, please don't leave, please don't leave.' She crossed her fingers in hope behind her back.

Sakura laughed and shook her head, "No thanks, I got stuff to do at home, maybe later?" She waved goodbye and walked onto the main roads and headed off.

Ino sighed as she watched her friend walk away and as Chouji awkwardly patted her on the back.

"_**A hundred ryo! Only a hundred ryo for this necklace! You there miss, are you interested?**__** Onegai, a moment of your time."-Storeowner**_

Naiteki laced her fingers together behind her head and thought about ways to get around her weakness of having such little chakra in supply. Her feet took her to the marketplace and she was whistling a tune that her mother used to sing to her when she was a few months old, in bed while smoothing out her hair, before everything happened.

_The stars are bright tonight, home on the left and moon on the right, fighting with life, I'm back from the fight__, won the game, seen the light, yeah I'm going home tonight._

As far as the subdominant personality knows for a fact, due to the all-nighters at the Konoha library, reading by candlelight, there are no jutsus that are well suited for her and her situation. When there are three personalities in the body, including Host, then the chakra in the body splits three ways equally, to support each personality. _Home on the left. _Host only has about a third of chakra the regular ninjas have. Naiteki has to owe it up to her, so she decided to try and find any jutsus that save chakra. (Genjutsu seemed like the most reasonable solution.) _The stars are bright tonight._ And not just save, but treat a person's chakra like its Hero's water.

The stupid library doesn't have anything useful to her. But hope is not lost yet, there are older ninjas that might teach her… Maybe not, that would be too awkward, trying to ask help from strangers. _Seen the light._ Well, all the other jounin senseis are teaching their own protégés and though Asuma-sensei specializes in ninjutsu, the jutsus he uses require a lot of chakra.

Hatake Kakashi, her own sensei could teach her something; except that he somehow disappeared from her life totally and utterly. Team 7 broke apart, but she still had her sensei with her, she first thought. _Fighting with life._ After Naruto left Konoha with that old-white haired Sannin, Hatake Kakashi, probably due to guilt, went on mission, after mission, after mission, after mission… but…

What about Sakura?! What about Naiteki and Youko?!

The feeling of abandonment was like Lee's gravity seals that hung off her soul. So, Hatake Kakashi is not her sensei anymore. She needs to have more techniques in her arsenal. She needs to teach herself. _Moon on the right._

Naiteki watched the sky darken, slowly from red to purple to dark blue and kept whistling the same tune over and over again to pass the time. _Won the game, seen the light. _The night was hers to enjoy. She looked around, how should she wait out the hours before dawn? Yesterday, she spent the night touring around the town in leisure. The day before that, she spent the night at the library. She realized the teahouse next door to Ichiraku's opens all night today; she could go there and lay low for a while.

Happy with her decision, Naiteki turned meandered down the street nodding politely to faces she semi-recognized and shaking her head at the stand owners that tried to sell their wares. "Young girl, koinichi, I presume? How about some…" She ignored most of the chattering and shouts, only half aware of her surroundings. Konoha is livelier at night, where loud music is present and drunken civilians and ninjas lean on one another and sing songs they learned as kids. _The stars are bright tonight. _The air gets cooler and the lamps hang from ninja wires, which look to Naiteki like little spirits and souls swaying side to side.

A relatively short time passed before she was standing at the doorway. The subdominant personality wrinkled her nose in distaste at the smell of sake and the sounds of laughter, the drunken "Hawr hawr" variety. She sighed, '_At least I'll get entertain watching them make fools out of themselves._'

"And she never joins us after training," Naiteki stopped mid-step. It's Ino-chan! She quickly ducked behind a stool and promptly criticized herself over her choice of hiding places. "I don't know what's wrong with Sakura-chan. But she's getting so strange lately, is she always like this? Chouji-kun you know what I'm talking about. Shika-kun, you got to help me!" '_Of all places._' Team 10 was at the ramen stand with Asuma-sensei and the lazy Nara.

'_They're worried that I don't join them?_' Naiteki frowned, scratching her cheek, '_That's a bad thing?_' She reviewed Host's memories, '_No!_' She mentally exclaimed, slapping her forehead, '_Of course. Team 7 had get-togethers during training. Ino-chan even invited me a couple of times. Wait, she invited me a lot of times! Of course it would seem out of the norm. Stupid! Stupid!_' She can't afford to look suspicious now, especially to her new comrades, '_Shit. What should I do? Youko's going to kill me!_'

In the mindscape, she had argued herself blue bargaining with Youko on her rights as a secondary sub-personality. She had taken over Host's night life and steered clear of certain areas and Youko had the job of modifying Host's mental base of what is unusual and what should be overlooked. Both personalities were in charge of Host's memories. It was a delicate balance and Youko had warned that if anybody, besides Taka-san, ever figures it out, it'll be curtains. Naiteki shuddered at the thought. If their cover was blown, then it's be square one all over again. That thought was enough to roll her in a terrified ball and run off a cliff; years of work, years of meticulous cover-up and its back to square one. The true plan just begun, the shout 'Hajime!' was the chunin exams and things were beginning to run its course, if it was given the chance.

She heard Nara Shikamaru's lazy drawl, "If there is anything wrong with her, then what would you suppose it is?" Naiteki started hyperventilating, '_Ahhh! What am I going to do?_' She heard a sigh and a muttered of some things being too, "Troublesome. Based on the events that you have told me, did it occur to you that you failed to mention an important factor?"

The blood drained from the pink-haired girl's face, '_Damn Shikamaru, he's too smart for his own good._'

"Eh? What would that be?" _'Please not it, please not it.'_

She heard him sigh again, "Her family? Did she ever talk about her parents?" There was silence. '_Shit_.'

Ino stuttered, "Well, no, but I've seen her parents pick her..." Naiteki covered her face. "I've never seen her parents." Then, there was a tone of revelation. "Wahhh!" The blonde genin grabbed onto Shikamaru's flak vest, "Shika-kun, what are we going to do?!" '_Double shit_.' Naiteki squinted toward the other members of Team 10. Asuma was uncharacteristically silent, not eating and spaced out, and Chouji kept eating, face scrunched up in thought.

The subdominant personality mental checked herself. Youko was asleep so she didn't hear this whole fiasco, but now, how was she going to keep everything under control?

Troubled with these thoughts, she stood up and slipped into the teahouse. Had she been a battle weary koinichi, she would've drowned her unpleasantries in sake, but she was a genin, who were not allowed to do much other than brood about their issues. There was loud music coming from a band onstage. There were sober and drunk ninjas and civilians being rowdy. Naiteki expertly dodged the flailing limbs and found herself a nice secluded table in the corner. She ordered some chai tea from the nice waiter. Leaning back, she observed the scene and the music and the joy, smiling despite herself, it was like this every night. Konoha was a live-for-the-moment village. She lazily closed her eyes and hummed a tune, _seen the light, yeah I'm going home tonight. _

She never sleeps. Despite the protests of the shared body, subdominant personalities aren't allowed to rest in the outer world, so Naiteki'll be up past the blackest hour before dawn.

"_**Beloved all, Yamato,"- Genma**_

Anko Mitarashi looked around the people gathered around the casket, at the ninjas who knew and the civilians who didn't know. She rolled her eyes and licked her lips, imagining a twirling dango stick in her mouth. The funeral session has been going on for a really long time now, around two hours and her legs were feeling numb. Anko was a woman of movement, attending funerals was not in her idea of a pleasant time.

There were many people crying or standing stone faced and she was briefly reminded of lessons by the snake sannin on how to act and school one's expression. In her hand was a bouquet of pink carnations. Hidden between the stems were small bits of clovers and oleanders. She inwardly grinned, only a Yamanaka can understand what she's saying.

She didn't listen to the funeral director and speaker who was droning on and on about how he would be never forgotten, always remembered.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw pink hair. Puzzled, she turned her head slightly; it was that Haruno girl, the female member of the non-existent Team 7. The girl walked up, unsure, towards the group of people, the girl projected a confused and wary aura; it's like she didn't know what she was doing here. She was very stiff.

The snake mistress carefully caught the genin's eye and winked. Sakura got the message and stepped towards her and the tokubetsu jounin noticed the purple bunch of flowers that she didn't recognize. The snake mistress wondered whether Sakura was well versed in the flower language. "Hey pinky," She greeted.

She nodded back solemnly, matching the atmosphere of event, "Crazy examiner." Anko grinned, glad that she was not forgotten.

"So what are you doing that Yamato's funeral?" The elder koinichi noticed a flicker in her companion's eye, 'interesting.' "Do you know him?"

"He who died? Umm, he's the jounin who wore the men yoroi, right?" She whispered back. She blinked, her eyes flickered again, "Taka-san…" The wheels were turning in the genin's head.

"He was killed on a mission," Anko took on a blank tone of voice, making the younger girl flinch slightly, "Stabbed through the neck by a shuriken. Do you know him?"

Hesitation. "Yamato? I know him. I think. He saved my life, I guess. And at the bar." The speech that the funeral speaker said was done. Both koinichis were silent as they watch people going up to the coffin, one by one, paying their respects to the dead. Somebody was playing a melancholic musical piece on the yamatogoto, fingers precisely plucking at the strings that vibrated. It pulled on many people's hearts despite the different reactions; some cried, some were stone-faced, some schooled their expressions perfectly. Anko paid her respects, and then it was the genin's turn. The tokubetsu jounin watched her carefully and was puzzle by what she saw; the Haruno girl walked up, gently placed her flowers on the coffin, bowed respectfully and muttered what Anko thinks is a, "thanks." The question begged to be asked was exactly how well did Yamato-san know this genin? The pink haired girl turned and walked away from the funeral, nodding to the older koinichi as she walked by.

"Well, that was interesting," remarked Genma, who had been keeping his eye on Haruno, the senbon twirling in a small circle in his mouth. Anko snorted, leave it to Genma to note the obvious, but, she looked around. It seems that the Haruno girl has attracted the attention of most jounin.

"Yeah Genma?" She challenged, "What did you see?"

"That she was confused." Anko was puzzled at the reply.

"Confused?"

"Yeah." He replied, "You'd think that she looked that she was forced, I guess the better word would be 'compelled' to thank him."

Deciding to interrupt the conversation, Raido remarked with a sideways glance toward his partner, "That girl was the one that Yamato asked us to watch after, Genma"

The bandana-wearing shinobi's eyes bulged out, "What?! No way! Her?!"

"Of course!" The scarred jounin hissed back, "How many others, I quote; 'Bubble-gum color haired' genins are here in Konoha." The conversation has attracted the attention of all the jounins within hearing range.

"Well," His companion sulked, "I was expecting more, I mean, he wanted us to help train her along by dropping hints, so I thought that with that type of training, she has got to be something big."

"…Baka, we're also protecting her."

"Yamato asked you to protect her? What is he? A protective elder brother?" Nara Yoshino asked with a lilt of amusement.

Raido shrugged, "I've wondered why, but I respect Yamato's wishes." The conversation ended, leaving lots of shinobis and koinichis in deep thought. "I was thinking about just popping up from time to time during her solitary training time and giving out some pointers, the rest of time just making sure that she's healthy I guess."

"Original plan, Raido-sama, may I kiss your feet for your genius?"

"You got a better idea, Anko?!"

"Doesn't she have her own jounin sensei?" Uzuki Yuugao murmured.

"Copy cat Kakashi? I heard that he still has to recover from his grief and almost forgot about her." Genma rolled his eyes.

"I heard that he did forget about her."

Inoichi spoke out, "Is it possible that Hatake taught Haruno the language of the flowers?"

Genma and Raido both turned their attention to the elder man, "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"And the interesting fact that she was offering Hydrangea." Anko looked even more confused and this did not go by unnoticed, "I thought my wife gave you a crash course on the meaning of flowers." He sighed at the still confused looks, "My daughter has been doing a better job than I have," He straightened up, "Hydrangea signifies thanks, as in 'thanks for understanding.'"

The ninjas listening to the conversation were very confused. 'How close was she to Yamato? And how did she get so close to an ANBU? What happened?'

As the funeral came to an end, and some people began to leave while others stayed, Anko speculated if Yamato would be thrilled to learn that the genin that he was unofficially teaching cared for him enough to go to his pseudo-funeral.

"_**Who? Are? You?"- Youko**_

Outside the mindscape of the primary house is a village that looks like an exact replica of Konohakagure, save for the people, the Konohakagure in the mindscape had no people. There was always whistling of the wind, creating a tune of its fancy that's melodious and playful, occasionally playing a haunting piece that echoes through the empty mindscape of the village.

The Konoha in the mindscape has no people, save for a single girl, all black except for a white outside, filled with sorrow, walking through the village with no clear cut direction. Naiteki was distraught at the news of Taka-san's, or Yamato-san's 'death'.

That man helped her a lot. Taka-san, when Naiteki was in charge of the body, would give suggestions to her on how to merge the personalities together. He had warned her of the dangers and the consequences of the process, unwelcome nightmares and memories would flood into Host's body, unbidden. There's a chance that Host will loose her mind when she absorbs her submissive personalities. Che, Host is fine, she dealt with so much now and she's still in one piece (barely).

There was a night that she spent with the ANBU at his apartment, poring over various records and research scrolls that were on his dining table. Anyone diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder was sent off to the Konoha mental ward, at the fourth floor of the Konoha Hospital. No ninja in the history of this village had DID, the patients were all civilians. There were only two recorded cases, and for the first patient, the treatment was successful, and the personalities merged. But after the process, said patient had a mental overload and broke down, lashing out against anyone and anything and died by itself in a secluded room with white padded walls. The doctors of the second patient who had DID were reluctant to merge his warring personalities together and just opted to keep a close eye on him giving him meditation exercises and such. Unfortunately, two years later, with a plus two hundred submissive personalities, his mind was so fragile with the multiple break offs of his soul that one day, out of nowhere, his mind shattered into a million pieces: he became non-responsive and dependent on a life-support system until he died.

These things had a high possibility of happening to her, the loneliness, the insanity, the vegetative state of mind. Naiteki, after reading, had sat up and taken deep, calming breaths. She has to do this, it'll be risk, but it's one that she's willing to take. Taka-san was sitting across from her, patiently waiting for her to pull herself together; his face covered up by the mask. "So, what is your plan of action?" He inquired.

"What it always has been," She replied, "I'm moving forward. I'm mentally preparing her for what's to come, I don't know how I'm going to break it to her but," She shrugged, "I'm praying for the right moment." The shinobi wordlessly picked up a nearby scroll and started to read it. Naiteki continued on, "I dropped off one hint to her. I made her notice that she never really gives a thought about home some days ago, but that's it. Host started to panic really badly and I had to take over before she got some cerebral aneorism."

"That's aneurysm."

She pouted, "Meh, whatever. But I'm not going to let that stop me! I promised Youko that I'll fix her up really well, Shannaro!" She gave him a variation of Lee's smile number thirty six, shining eyes and a thumbs-up sign, but he was not affected.

Taka-san leaned over and patted her on her head. The night was going by, it was time they parted ways again. At his doorway, he spoke up, "I won't be here tomorrow to see you."

She looked up at him, and scrutinized him closely. He had another mission. "When will you be back?"

He shook his head, "I don't think you will ever see me again."

She stared at him in horror and kept her mouth shut, knowing that questioning him would be useless. She read between the lines and at his stance and concluded that he's going on a suicide mission, probably on orders of the Hokage. '_What? Is he crazy?'_ She frowned, he's expecting to die, and she'll be all alone again, just after she had created a close bond with this man. '_It's not his fault; he has an obligation to defend Konohakagure. But his announcement was so sudden. Wait_.'

It came to her that the ANBU was trying to tell her something else. Look underneath the underneath, she breathed; '_this was his way of saying good-bye. He's doing this for her, instead of disappearing from her life without warning_. _He's trying his hardest to show emotions to tell me that he cares for her. It's a good-bye, and he's trying to make a smooth transition. Stupid._' Tears in her eyes, she hugged him and felt him stiffen up, and then gradually relax to return the hug. "Bye, Taka-san." She murmured.

"There'll be a funeral of me tomorrow. Don't think that I'm truly dead unless you have a personal word from the Hokage."

"Hai."

Naiteki walked through the empty roads of the mindscape. Her hands were trembling and she glared at nothing in particular. There was a bucket in front of her and she stepped on it, willing for it to crush under her feet: nothing, "Rahhhh!!!" She yelled in rage, kicking a bucket that was lying on the road. The bucket flew through the air and landed some ways in the distance, still mocking the submissive personality. The wind blew and rolled the bucket slightly toward her directing. She gritted her teeth.

Today, she managed to find the funeral commemorating Taka-san, or now, she guess that she should be calling him Yamato-san. _'Not that it makes a difference_,' she sniffed, '_most likely it's not even his real name._' She had gotten some flowers from the Yamanaka shop (thank god Ino wasn't there or the would be questions), and gave them to the grave of Taka-san. At the casket, she had Host whisper thanks to him, though Host was probably slightly unnerved at Inner Sakura telling her what to do. It was proper. Taka-san had warned her of the dangers of what Naiteki was going to do. She brushed it off.

But she knows that Yamato cared, he had tried to help her, a mere stranger before the fiasco with Yoroi Akado. She's touched at his unasked for kindness. And yet. She looked around and observed the empty village, at the windows that were closed and the darkness behind the glass.

It's official. She's alone again. She angrily wiped tears from her eyes. He's gone and not coming back, the reality had hit her after the ANBU had left the village. Naiteki had not stopped crying until the sun rose the next day. But that's all behind her now. She's not sad, she's strong, she can live with this, and she will respect Taka-san's memory and find a way to fix Host.

"_**You're annoying,"- Sasuke Uchiha**_

Time passed by like a current in a river. Almost five months came and went and many things have happened to the village and one specific pink haired, green eyed genin.

**A grain of sand.** Sakura was giddy after coming out of the ninja wear store wearing a multi-use vest. They didn't have one of her size but she bought one anyways. The bottom of the vest was centimeters above the edge of her shirt. '_Oh well,_' she shrugged. It was Inner Sakura that was encouraging her to buy this article of clothing that was priced at around five D-missions. She wondered if cleaning the Inuzuka kennels was worth it. Pfft, of course it was, there was some special light-weight, thin armor inside the vest and so many pockets and kunai holders! She closed her eyes and squealed. She has something new and it's perfect and it's so awesome!

**A grain of sand.** Team 10 had a gradual influx of C and B ranked missions now. The hokage never gave them an A-mission though, '_bummer'_ Inner Sakura grumbled good-naturally. Ino was the official head of the team now with Sakura and Chouji as her willing subordinates. Their jounin sensei would accompany them on B-missions but nowadays, never with C or D ranked missions.

**A grain of sand.** The training schedule of Team 10 was getting harder and harder. For Sakura, she had to fight tooth and nail for every drop of chakra to make her reserves grow. She was so sick of water walking that if anybody even mentioned 'water' and 'walking' together, even if the sentence was 'Let's go walking by the water bed!' she would have a semi-mutinous look on her face as she stared into the distance plotting something nefarious. Asuma-sensei introduced her to air-walking, a self explanatory training regimen that's even more extreme that the previous: Sakura can walk on water for a couple hours now, she can only walk on air for ten minutes. With that realization, Sakura had a big sense of de-ja vu.

Her own Taijutsu style which she called Hiken Ryuu which allows her to use her Katon jutsu in sync with the moves that Rock Lee has been helping her develop. With her control, she can use the Katon that's extended from her fist to stab and slice more smoothly through many things, like enemies and gangs from C-missions and above. With enough chakra in her body, she can maintain the Katon technique on both her hands at the same time. With enough chakra in her body she can do roughly seventeen Katon blast explosions on a good day before getting wearied. On the last day of her one and one training-in-the-mornings with Lee, the outgoing genin had tearfully hugged her and shouted out his joy. Lee then offered her a familiar green spandex full bodysuit as a gift which she graciously ('_Eugh'_ Inner Sakura turned away.) turned down. She had no perfected Rendan yet, but that'll come in time.

She had created varieties of her Ichinichihenji no Jutsu, or as Ino called it, the One-touch-Freeze techniques. Sakura was also very adept towards specific limited area genjutsu. She can use genjutsus as traps and could weave what she would call Sanjuu Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu. She loved the intricacies of illusion-making and easily bonded with Kurenai-sensei over the art. She was the fish. Genjutsu was the water.

Her most memorable jutsu, though, was the one where when the victim sets of a trigger in a specific area, he or she would imagine their most hated, despised, wished dead person, in a bathing suit. The bathing suit was always the same though, it was one that she had spotted that a manikin was sporting, a bright red, skimpy, bikini in front of a window. The Rinji KO as it is now dubbed was created in the memory of Naruto's Oiroke no Jutsu. She showed it to Tsunade-sama, with a bit too gleeful expression on her face as she watched the Densetsu no Kamo's face contort in horror and she wondered how would Orochimaru look like in that sort of… best not think about it for too long.

**A grain of sand.** Team 10 were on the training fields. Sakura and Ino were arguing, Chouji tried his hardest not to interfere, and Asuma was silently smoking.

"I don't want to be a medic!"

"You did! Tsunade-shishou told me that you had asked to be her apprentice!" Ino yelled back.

"I don't want to do it now, nosy Ino-pig!" Sakura yelled back. "You can't make me!" It sounded childish to her, but there was no way she could ever become one.

"Why? You're so good at it, why can't you just swallow your pride and join the medic classes!"

"Because!"

"Because what?"

"Because, you can't save everyone." Sakura's green eyes flashed dangerously, "And if you can't save everyone, then what's the poin-." She stopped as a glare was directed toward her.

"Don't finish that sentence." The blonde koinichi growled. The two girls stood there, and the air was charged up and full of tension. Ino's face softened, "Sakura? What's wrong with you?" Sakura stiffened up. "No, don't do that to me, don't freeze up." Ino reached out to shake her shoulder, "What's going on? Is it your family? Just tell me! After Naruto and Sasuke left Konoha, you changed. Forehead." She shook her shoulder again, "I don't think you have anything in you."

Sakura's eyes widened, and stared straight ahead. Then, she turned around and ran away, back into the village, ignoring Ino's calls to come back.

'_Parents? What parents? Do I have parents? Where's my home? I have nothing in me? Am I nothing?_'

Shoes made pat-pat sounds as she ran over a wooden crossing. She had no idea where she was going, and she couldn't comprehend what she was feeling, or hearing, or seeing, but can only hope that she wasn't attracting unwanted attention. It's strange, seeing a bright sunny day, no clouds, compared with the total convoluted mess within her. She can barely think now and she stumbled over the curb and dropped on one knee, feeling really dizzy.

'_Who am I?_'

She leaned against the side of the building as she sat on the sidewalk, ignoring curious stares by closing her eyes and lowering her head into her arms. She doesn't want to think about this, and she's so tired. She's so, so tired… Unbeknownst to her, Naiteki was diligently erasing her memory…

In five minutes, she will walk back to Training Area 10 acting as if nothing has happened and the matter will never be spoken directly into her face ever again.

"_**And nobody appreciates it. Nobody has used it to such an extent as the Kurama clan before it was wiped out. Now I'm the renowned genjutsu mistress, and there should be more!"- Kurenai Yuhi, on her eleventh cup of sake**_

At the dead of night here was a man sleeping on a bed in a run down motel located in Mizu no Kuni. He tossed and turned underneath his covers. Kakashi was having a nightmare. Flashes of his life spun around him in a dizzy motion. He was standing in the middle of nothing-ness. His precious people were appearing, then disappearing into nothing-ness.

His father lifting him up and giving him a bear hug, "I'm proud of you!" There was a sense of security in his strong arms.

In the dark room, lying in a puddle of blood, his father lies on the ground with his stomach cut open, "I'm sorry."

Obito was in a beginner sparring stance, "Teme! I'll beat you one day!"

Rin's soft gaze was for him only, "Kakashi-kun, you'll always save me right?"

"Kakashi, I want you to have my eye, as a gift for passing the jounin exams," Obito's breaths came out in soft pants; the boulder on top of his body didn't budge.

Rin's eyes were so lifeless, "…Tired."

The Sadaime stared at him from under his hat, "No, Rin's parents did not get the execution sentence Hatake, as it was, I am disgusted to say, merely child abuse. The council gave them both five years in prison with no appeal." Shadows obscured his eyes.

The Yondaime smiled, "Sometimes we, as humans, can't see what's blatantly in front of us. Life isn't fair Kaka-kun. We all live through it."

"His…" His blue eyes closed as he whispered, "name is Uzumaki Naruto, and he… will be remembered as… a… hero…" His life left him.

Rin morphed into the abused child mission, "Aren't you going to kill me?" The child exploded into a million drops of blood, all heading towards one direction, towards Kakashi. A million drops of blood represents a million people he killed. He couldn't move, it was not allowed in his nightmare. With a resigned fate, he concluded that this would be his purgatory, to cleanse him, it was his retribution. The blood drops that looked like mini shurikens flew through the air and…

Was gone.

And it was all over, signified by the dead weight on his heart. He can't stop the moments of time or his precious persons' faces from falling between his fingers and fading. They were all leaving him. He can't move, he can't speak, and he was helpless. "Weak." A voice whispered. "You can't do anything right!"

"You're so worthless! How could you mess up your life so badly?!" The copy-cat ninja was suddenly shamefully aware of how his posture was bent, trying to shield himself from the verbal assaults. He needed to liberate him self from this mess, how can he escape? "I'm not done with you yet." The voice hissed in a low tone. He closed his eyes.

"Kakashi." The spell was broken: he can move, and he turned around. He recognized that voice anywhere.

"Sensei." There were two other people with him. "Rin. Obito." They all nodded towards him and faded away, but the Hatake could sense that his comrades were there with him, though sadly it did not give closure, it brought about a sense of comfort.

Sasuke appeared, sitting down with his head resting on his hands, "I have no dreams but I have a goal… no, an ambition, to kill a certain man."

He disappeared and a leaf hitai-ate laid on the ground in his place, in a scene of a waterfall, the Valley of the End, mocking the jounin. A chill ran down his back, but he couldn't give an involuntary shiver.

"Sensei!" It was Naruto, "Can you teach me something?" There was no response from him. "Awww! Why not!" There was hurt in his eyes and Kakashi remembered, it was after the preliminaries in the chunin exams. "You're teaching Sasuke! Why can't you teach me?!" He vanished.

…And reappeared with Jiraiya, his ever cheerful grin plastered on his face, "I'm going on a training trip with Ero-sennin! Bye Kakashi-sensei! And thanks!" _For nothing._ The two walked away.

Team Minato reappeared in front of his line of sight. "Those are only two of your students Kaka-kun." The Yondaime spoke. "You spend too much time in your guilt, it's about time you come into the present." The team didn't move. "You can't keep dwelling on your mistakes; one has to heal at some point in one's life." Minato Namikaze, Kakashi's sole father figure after Sakumo Hatake, always understanding and steadfast. And the happy ending stopped, and it all went wrong.

"Kakashi-kun," Rin said, "Don't get caught up in the past. Let it go, let your self go free." Her eyes were filled with pity for him and his situation. He turned away from her, not wanting to meet her eyes as she said, "Go back home, Kakashi."

He still didn't look at her, feeling very immature as he did so. Oh how he wanted to hug all three of his old friends and cry on their shoulders, but he was afraid of the consequences, that he was not… worthy to touch them in joy. If he were to reach out, they would shatter, like fragile glass. Tears leaked out from only his sharingan eye and he reached up to wipe away the wetness, and a song from the depths of his memory rose slowly, shaking off the dust and shining brightly.

Rin always sang that childish tune whenever a mission was finished. _The stars are bright tonight, home on the left and moon on the right, fighting with life, I'm back from the fight, won the game, seen the light, yeah I'm going home tonight._

"Kakashi, you still have someone who depends on you." Obito said.

The man woke up. He was on his bed and it was dark outside. There was no moon and he rubbed his face, which was to his mild surprise, mask-less. He still has one student, to teach (to redeem him self?).

Sakura Haruno: never truly acknowledged as a potential true koinichi.

How is she?

He couldn't know now, because he left the village without… speaking to her. No good-bye, no nothing. "Nothing comes from nothing," A voice snidely scoffed, "speak again."

"I'm so sorry."

"_**I forgave you a long time ago"- Obito Uchiha**_

Kabuto plans in the basement of a secret building. He is penning out a mission request, sent to one of his contacts in Mizu no Kuni and prepared to be sent to Konohakagure as a C-mission: to protect a caravan from bandits. Kabuto specifically requested Team 10, which will be slightly suspicious but no so much because of the team's growing reputation for the most successful and distasteful missions under their belt than the rest of the Rookie Nine of Konoha.

He smiled to himself and hummed a tune as he sealed the scroll and handed it to an assistant. His plans are to be put into action, and he needs Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino.

The scroll was sent through hands and hands again. It traveled through all of the Great Shinobi nations before coming to a stop in Konoha, or specifically, in hands of the Hokage.

Tsunade would scan the contents of the scroll and call for Shizune. "Get ANBU squad eleven; I want a background check on a man named Kana Shiji." Of course, that is what Kabuto was expecting from a world weary, calculating sannin, now Godaime of a great shinobi village. But Kabuto Yakushi is known for his meticulous planning and careful work that left no holes to be taken advantaged of. He had double and triple checked everything, so nothing can go wrong.

Nobody can trace Kana Shiji back to Sound. And sooner or later, Tsunade will probably give the mission to Team 10, whether it'll be due to the pay, or the complaints from the young children, as his spies had told him, or just the fact that her espionage group (not including Jiraiya's spy network), which in Konoha was seriously lacking in ability nowadays in his opinion, wouldn't be able to find anything suspicious, he wasn't sure. But the Densetsu no Kamo will give the C-mission to Asuma and his ragtag band of genins and they will be escorting a man named Kana Shiji and his family in a caravan to a small village bordering Amekagure, as accordance to the plan.

Will the Hokage have that instinctual suspicion that something is not right as she gives the mission to the Sarutobi?

He had planned carefully. All prior experiments were finished, and he was curious of what would happen to the minds of the genin girls once he was done with them. Done with them… oh the possibilities of knowledge were within his grasp. Orochimaru-sama had lazily waved a hand towards his direction and told him to do whatever he must. The Uchiha boy was not informed. 'Curiosity killed the cat.' A voice said. He shrugged. 'Satisfaction brought it back.'

It'll only be a matter of time.

Glossary

**Shintenshin no Jutsu****. **C-rank. Mind Body Switch Technique. It is specialized for the Yamanaka clan. Through willpower, the user can invade the mind and body of the target ninja. During the jutsu, the user's body, without a soul, is vulnerable to outer attacks.

**Shosen no jutsu****. **A-rank. Chakra Scalpels or Mystical Palm Technique. Requires lots of concentration and control but the benefits are there. One, by collecting their chakra in their hands and manipulating it as a blade, can perform surgery without cutting the flesh. It can be used in combat.

**Hiken Ryuu. **Fire Fist. Sakura's taijutsu style name: still developing.

**Rendan**. Combo of some sort under the branch of Taijutsu.

**Magen: Sanjuu Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu****. **High B-rank. Demonic Illusion: Triple False Surroundings Technique. When the target dispels the first illusion, he probably won't know about the second illusion under it. And if the target dispels the third illusion, he probably won't know about the third illusion under it. Requires high chakra control and is controlled by moving chakra in the user's hands.

**Rinji KO. **Low C-rank. Special Knock Out. Explained above.

**Densetsu no Kamo.**Legendary Sucker- a nickname representing Senju Tsunade's horrible luck at gambling.

**Oiroke no Jutsu****. **E-rank. Ninja Centerfold. Sexy Technique. User turns into a naked woman that's barely covered by some well thought-out placed puffs of clouds. It's very bad for perverted men with hemophilia.

**Men Yoroi. **The forehead protector that Yamato wears. "Face armor"


	5. The Maze and the Tomb

_**Author notes… I'm trying to figure out a viable Kakashi-Sakura romance… and most of the scenarios I'm coming out with are slightly twisted… Man... I thank anybody who has come to read my story this far. And don't forget to read between the lines ^O^. (I love reading Sakura-bashing/ ignorant-Sakura fics as long as they don't go overboard with the powerful-angsty-Naruto characterization. They're so funny!)**_

"_**Saying that it is elementary does not give it enough credit, Sasuke-kun. It's all to your benefit, so you should be thanking me."-Kabuto**_

He regrets forgetting to grab a bag of chips that was sitting on the kitchen counter back at home. Chouji felt every hair on his body stand up on edge. Sakura switched positions with Asuma-sensei and was guarding the rear, the jounin took right side. The team made irregular swap positions are random intervals of time, only Ino, an assigned personal guard for the head of the family, stayed where she was.

The family of husband, wife, and two daughters seemed normal. The young women and her children were talking among themselves on how they should cook lunch. The kids were excited imagining eating rabbit and roughing it like those heroes that they read in books. Kana Shiji, the head of the family was chatting with Ino who politely gave her opinion that yes, the fruits in Konoha are much sweeter in the south, and yes, the air is incredibly hot right now, and yes, the previous hokages on the monument probably do look like they got a sort of Goykakyu no Jutsu that came from the wrong end. Kana Shiji was social, and loud, and amiable.

And Chouji was freaked out to no end.

_**Chapter 5… The Maze and the Tomb**_

Once, way back before the chunin exam, before the Rookie Nine, before even graduation from the Academy, there was a day where Iruka was sick. Mizuki-sensei had taken his place from his assistant teacher status and he decided to teach them psychological studies of a ninja. "Can anybody tell me what's passed down from generations and generations of ninja families?"

Sakura had raised her hand first, "Bloodlines and specialized family jutsus." She stated proudly.

The gray haired chunin nodded, "Excellent. What else?" The academy students look puzzled. He took it as a cue to start his lecture.

Chouji can't remember most of the speech, but there was, as Mizuki said, a survival instinct. Ability for one's mind to tell the body that something's wrong, though all rational logic would say it's not. It's a trait that was alive back in the days when there was no language, culture, or civilizations; one had to live on the land. Back in the days, people had to fight against animals and one another as the lack of trust fueled fear and ignorance, finally drawing out battles and blood. The fear and ignorance eventually became somewhat more humane, they are now called Shinobi wars. The survival trait remains suppressed within anybody who doesn't need it, like civilians.

Ninjas need it, and as ninja clans were set up, before Hidden villages were formed, the survival instinct was carefully cultivated as a subconscious safeguard. The instinct can be honed to a point as one learns from experience the realities of ambush, and death. In the end, Mizuki concluded, the older the family line, the stronger the survival instinct.

Now, on the mission, the Akimichi's heart was beating rapidly and it was only growing quicker as time passed and Asuma-sensei was watching him closely, silently telling him to keep calm and act like nothing strange is happening. Ino seemed slightly off, scowling a bit more than usual, but one can easily mistake that for annoyance. Sakura didn't seem aware at all, coming from a civilian family and all, he would hazard a guess. Another random position switch between the guards: this time, Chouji switched with Sakura and as they exchanged their places, Chouji held eye contact to the girl for two seconds before glancing to the family residing in the caravan.

He remained unsure whether she understood the message as she immediately broke the eye contact to stare impassively at a couple clouds up in the sky. Should he be looking underneath the underneath? His head hurts and he is so hungry.

As soon as the Shiji family decides to take a break, he's pulling Asuma-sensei away and asking him whether the mission was mislabeled. It feels like an A-rank mission, a rather high one at that. The forest was so thick around them that he felt like a caged animal. He nearly jumps out of is skin when the caravan rolls over a bump on the road but forced himself to relax. There are no ninjas waiting in the forest to-

SHHHK!

If he hadn't dodged to the right, his head would've been cut off by a windmill shuriken. Asuma-sensei spun around and threw a kunai toward the trees, and flew through the hand seals, "Kage kunai no jutsu!" The kunai turned into ten kunais; some hit their mark. Enemy nins were surrounding the perimeter and Chouji wondered how they were able to mask their presence so well.

"Katon." Sakura activated her Katon jutsu and by concentrating fire chakra into her two hands. The pink haired girl looked towards Chouji and winked, "Get ready." Before he could protest, she turned toward the trees, raised her arms and aimed. For a second, it seemed like Sakura's features morphed into someone else, more assured and confident… He shook his head. One tree was felled by the fireball; the other fireball was destroyed by a water jutsu from the enemy. Some burned. With a battle cry, the enemy ninjas jumped from the trees and charged forward. The air was charged and filled with chakra that were part of jutsus and sharpened weapons.

Chouji ran forward, "Baika no Jutsu!" He jumped into the air, "Nikudan Sensha!" He became a human bullet tank. The green eyed koinichi jumped up and gave a chakra enhanced kick at Chouji, sending him head first into the fray. He heard Asuma shouting orders at the girls to defend and provide adequate backup.

Funneling chakra into his arms, he screams, "Cho Harite!" Sakura used his shoulder as leverage and jumped far ahead of him to disable as many nins as she can. Sakura and he were joining forces and working together like a well oiled machine. His partner was wounding anybody who managed to dodge his palms with her own combined fire chakra enhanced taijutsu style. It worked amazingly well and it seems like Asuma-sensei's boot camp was paying off. When Chouji aimed upward, Sakura was covering his blind spots, when Sakura rushed to her left to attack, Chouji was guarding her right. "Cho Harite!" The enemy ninjas were from Otogakure. What were they doing here? It's unusual, because they don't seem to be trying to kill Sakura; they seem to be trying to capture her. Is this a potential hostage situation? They always get the girls, thinking koinichis as the weaker sex… He blocked a dual attack and punched out some teeth. These ninjas aren't skilled, but they made up in sheer numbers.

He quickly scanned backwards and saw Ino in an assumed standard guard position, her weapons already coated with blood. Between the sounds of metal against metal, he heard from her, "Shiji-san, please get into the caravan for your safety!"

He dispatched another nin and pivoted on his heal to quickly punch-

It occurred to him as he was flanked on his right by five nins, this was a trap. The ninjas that charged out of the tree were a diversion. The more powerful shinobis were battling Asuma-sensei. He looked back at the caravan. Ino and Kana Shiji were gone, he suspected betrayal. So all that remains would be…

Sakura! He spun around just in time to see a sound nin effortlessly knocking out the exhausted genin with a hit towards the back of her neck. She collapsed into the enemy ninja's arms and with a simple shunshin, she and all the enemy ninjas were gone.

It was over. He blinked, surprised that he was still alive, and checked his surroundings. The client and his family were gone; there were only a couple disabled enemy ninjas that couldn't move because of their injuries. He saw Asuma-sensei among them, only sporting a couple of nasty looking bruises, binding them with ninja wire. The jounin looked up, "Prisoners of battle, we can interrogate them." He explained blandly, Chouji noticed how his eyes seemed darker than usual. After searching through the caravan in hope for any additional information, in which there was none, the man straightened up, "We can't go to Sound, too many unknowns." He angrily kicked the side of a captured shinobi, "Otogakure knew that Tsunade-sama would accept the mission for Team 10, despite both mine and her vigilance, because of the scouts on the road. That would be the reason why you and I are still alive; their mission must be done quickly. But this is far more than what I had thought of, Otogakure was apparently very determined to snatch them." The jounin frowned and growled, "And I still have no idea why."

The rotund genin nodded, "You want to go back to Konoha, sensei."

Asuma looked around, "Yes, be on the lookout. Due to the situation and the commotion, some Konoha reconnoiterers should come soon, but keep on your toes." The two took the five prisoners and walked back south towards Konohakagure and towards the Hokage.

"_**It is a maze and a tomb."- Orochimaru.**_

She woke up in a four by five, metal box with one single window, or a slit in the wall that lets in some rays of sunlight. Her hands were bound, her mouth was taped, and there was a chakra suppression seal on her right shoulder. '_What happened to me?_' She groaned to herself. '_Kidnapped by Oto-nins. But why?_' Cautiously, she got to her knees and adjusted her eyes to the limited light and peeked out the window. She was being carried Northwards, Otogakure most likely, for what though? And where was her team? Ino? Asuma-sensei? Chouji-kun? She only saw ninjas. There were so many Sound ninjas around her, probably a lot more that she couldn't see, but why? The box jostled violently and she lost her balance, head dropping back on to the cold surface. Resting there for a minute, she closed her eyes. _'So tired.'_

Her chakra storages were probably empty; the chakra suppression seals were useless at this point, nothing more than a safeguard. Despite all the training, the stamina that she worked so hard to develop was feeble at best. '_Weak_,' she berated herself, '_Why are you so weak?_'

Never the less, she congratulated herself on putting up a good fight with the enemy, besides rendering two ninjas disabled, she held up multiple other ninjas that should have provided enough distraction to get Asuma-sensei and Ino to rush the clients to safety. Except that while she was fighting, she glanced at her sensei, which seemed to be having difficulty fighting off five shinobis. How suspicious. The shinobis that Asuma were fighting were at least jounin level and the shinobis that she was fighting with were somewhere at chunin level. It was a distraction and it also seems like they didn't want to kill her. Their objective was to capture her, but for what?

Tsunade probably felt that something like this would happen on this specific mission. The genin had thought of it weird that out of the blue, the jounin decided to accompany them on their C-mission. Shocked but taking it all in the stride, Team 10 moved along. She flipped onto her back and stared up.

Outrageous thought but… it was possible that the whole mission to escort Shiji Kana and his family was a trap laid by Sound. So the whole thing was a conspiracy. She snorted and turned over to her other side. Her index finger idly traced imaginary shapes on the cold surface as she hoped that the rest of her team was alive and safe.

She breathed, in and out. It was best to not do anything for a while, gain some information. It would not do to get into the predators' bad graces. She relaxed her mind and closed her eyes, she was so tired…

…

Naiteki opened her eyes and slowly eased herself into a standing position, grunting as her head bumped onto the top of the box as she straightened. She hunched over, scowling, this was not what she had thought would happen, no weapons within reach, those Oto-nins sure were thorough, if nothing else. She tapped on a wall softly with her foot and the whole box jostled again in response. So the outside people can hear her, eh?

Well she's not going to let that stop her, Shannaro! She just needs to think for a while, and hope that Youko hasn't awakened yet. The poor girl would be at her wits end, the girl snickered but quickly sobered, how Youko is going to react when she realizes that Host was kidnapped was a thing not to be pondered over.

A sigh as she let her thoughts wander, she really misses Taka-san. She now has nothing to do but wander the streets on her own. It got scarier too, it seemed like she was being followed, stalked, and watched. She realized what was happening when one day ANBU personnel gave her some chakra theory scrolls when she was wandering around the neighborhood. So, Taka-san asked some of the higher ranked ninjas to watch over her. Taka-san is so thoughtful and caring. She giggled and sniffed, '_idiot man. Why did I reveal everything about me to you on that day at the bar?_' She had, a long time ago, convinced herself that it was whatever the nurses had slipped into her tea earlier in the day that had done the talking.

All the information that she spilled from her lips, she believed, can not be taken back, and she had make do with the situation at hand. She would admit now that she felt something special with that man, and she wasn't too sure what it was. Maybe he was a distant relative of his… Whatever it was, she felt the close bond between them and honest to Kami, it hurts like hell to have him away, possibly for forever.

And then, the box suddenly stopped. She gave out a muffled yelp and she awkwardly regained her footing, and failing. There's going to be a bruise on her butt the next day.

That is, if she's going to live the next day. Damn it all, she doesn't want to die!

The slit on the wall throbbed with chakra and slowly grew. The light that was coming in was blinding to her eyes that were well adjusted to the dark. She stared as a nondescript shinobi stepped forth into the light and raised his hand. She unconsciously backed up against the opposite side of the wall, hunched over in a defense position and growled, '_Hell no. Don't come near me you fucking bastard_.' The ninja disappeared, a hand came down onto the back of her neck and she saw black.

"_**We can't get them back, Asuma. One, we don't know where their location is except that it's somewhere in the Rice Country. Second, we don't even know if they're alive or not, and due to their genin status, the Council won't be pressed; perhaps save for the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, to prepare a rescue. Three, we don't have enough ninjas for active status due to the latest chunin exam invasion. Four, as to foreign diplomacy, without proof that it was Oto nins ambushing you besides your and your student's word, which I of course believe in, the other nations will see Konoha nins infiltrating Otogakure as an declaration of war."-Tsunade, ticking off reasons with her fingers.**_

Hatake Kakashi remembered the feeling of his blood freeze when he heard the rumors; Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka were abducted by Otogakure. The news, coming from the mouth of the tearful Akimichi heir were heart wrenching to the Yamanaka head who soon afterwards, proceeded to drown his sorrows at the local shinobi bar.

The Copy-cat nin shifted onto his other foot, and turned his attention back to the secretary who was filing mission reports and steadily getting agitated under the jounin's gaze. Of course, she didn't know that she was being observed, it was a purely subconscious thought, and she will dismiss it as paranoia. After all, Hatake Kakashi couldn't be staring at her right now if he has his head currently buried under the worn out Icha Icha Paradise.

After the strange nightmare he had of his unkind past, he had rushed from Mizu no Kuni to Hi no Kuni, hoping that to Kami he wasn't late and that his last remaining genin student would find some compassion deep in her heart to forgive him and all he had done, (He wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't.) only to find that Sakura had joined Team 10 and that they were on an escort C-rank mission. The information hit him hard once again, Team 7 is gone, but it wasn't Sakura's fault, but there was no one to teach her, no one to protect her, it was necessary and proper that she would join another team as a replacement. No, this piece of information didn't hurt as much as the next piece of recent news: Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka were abducted by Sound nins.

Asuma Sarutobi had immediately headed off towards the Hokage, brushing off the curious questioners as if they were flies. Chouji had followed and not five minutes afterwards, came out of the office and ran towards his father and recounted the events to everybody who would hear. Apparently, their C-rank mission was some ploy to capture the two girls and now, the entire Yamanaka clan was reeling with shock. Idly, he wondered how Sakura's parents were dealing with the news.

His train of thought was derailed with the command from the other side of the door, "Come in please, Kakashi." He took one last look at the secretary, who was not taking it well with the tension in the room, closed his book with a snap and entered the room. He saw Asuma and Tsunade and walked over to them.

"Hokage-sama," He greeted lightly, "Where's my student?"

The tension in the room grew steadily. Tsunade raised an eyebrow, "You're student? You haven't seen your student in nearly six months."

He tried not the growl in frustration, "She is and always will be my student; I came back for her." He said firmly.

The two others exchanged glances and nodded. Tsunade replied, "So she would've been part of Team 10 and under your private tutorage, had you not disappeared."

He bowed, telling himself that he would not show weakness. "Forgive me, Hokage-sama, I had to clear my mind."

Asuma took out a cigarette, Kakashi could almost sag in relief, and it meant that the tension in the room was dropping to an acceptable level, "We damn hope you did. You better had cleared your mind all the way back the pre-genin teams too. What's this I heard from Kurenai that you only taught two of your students tree climbing and one of your students an assassination technique?" He inquired; his tone of voice was bland.

The silver haired man was silent, how was he going to explain how he only favored one student? How was he going to explain that Sasuke Uchiha needed extra attention because he was going to fight a jinchuuriki containing the Shukaku, the one-tailed demon? Sasuke Uchiha reminded him of Obito and he felt that he was respecting Obito's memory if he cared for the survivor of the fallen clan. Sasuke was the rookie of the year while Naruto was dead-last of the academy, a loud and obnoxious genin with horrible chakra control due to the Kyuubi, and Sakura was a enamored fangirl, more interested in impressing Sasuke with her looks then training herself and her koinichi skills. Sasuke was, in Kakashi's mind, too far gone to be saved, even with the sessions with a therapist after the massacre, the remaining Uchiha was still consumed by thoughts of revenge and kept teasing Naruto of his skills and rejecting Sakura. He thought that with Sasuke out of the way as a chunin, Naruto and Sakura would be less distracted and can concentrate on becoming well-reputed ninjas, he can devote his time to his remaining genin team with, hopefully, a less arrogant replacement, and the remains of Team 7 would be promoted. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

He sighed and rubbed his mask with a hand, "Where did I go wrong…"

Tsunade cleared her throat, "Unfortunately, as I was telling Asuma, we can not sneak into Orochimaru's village due to the lack of information. Choza Akimichi had asked for his son not to participate in the next chunin exam which is near, I think you would understand why." The jounin nodded stiffly. Tsunade dismissed him.

Asuma walked towards the door, but stopped in front of Kakashi, "Hey." He started, hesitant at first, "You want to get a drink later at the Lone Shinobi at seven?" Kakashi nodded, surprised and slightly unsure at what the gesture of friendship would mean for him in the future. The older jounin gave a reassuring pat on his shoulder and left, the other jounin could smell smoke.

The door closed, the remaining man walked slowly towards the Godaime, who was scrutinizing him. "Sharingan Kakashi, so you've finally came to your senses!" She gave him a lopsided grin and started laughing outright. And for some seconds, the laughter echoed off the walls of the open office, as the woman wiped tears from her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she fanned herself, "There were so many of your actions that I could've deemed not suitable for a teacher and could've pulled out of the job of a jounin sensei, you know." He nodded again, "I must say, I was thinking that you would just die on a typical A-mission in your grief at the rate you were going. Thank god I didn't bet on you." She mused.

"Hokage-sama." He said, voice just barely veiling his anguish.

She sobered up and stood. She embraced the younger shinobi and patted his back. "There, there…" She muttered in a motherly way. He bent over her form, hiding his face and not hugging back but she could feel her shoulder getting wetter. The jounin seemed to relax as time went by. Tsunade still remembered when she was young and in her young years, when she saw the little silver haired brat running around the village in ninja attire. He was still young. "It's ok, it's ok; everything will be alright at the end." Now, if only she could convince herself that.

"_**Begin,"-Kabuto.**_

Sasuke Uchiha looked at the stone walls warily. He had no idea where Kabuto, in his more than usual amount of glee, was taking him. The older ninja.... 'genin' he sneered in his mind, was walking down twists and turns as they headed deeper and deeper into the complex. Despite his time staying down here, he had barely gotten used to the place and its mass size. Otogakure was nothing more a small village in front and a series of underground tunnels that linked chambers that sometimes go ten or twelve stories underground strategically placed in Ta no Kuni, or as it is named now, Oto no Kuni, in the back. Orochimaru-sensei had restricted the Uchiha into the first and second levels below ground of the hiding place.

He knows nothing about what goes on in the deeper levels but he can guess based on rumors around Konohakagure and Otogakure that they were horrors: experiments of multiple innocents, bodies filled with chemicals, eyes were mutated to try and gain the Sharingan through man-made means. Whatever, it was not his business to pry, Orochimaru pledged on his chakra that he would not do anything to him until Itachi was dead, and that was good enough for him. The two nins were at the fifth level now, a sharp scream was heard, two seconds later there was silence. He heard a dripping sound. 'Blood.' He suppressed a shudder; none of this was humane, based on what he sees now, the rumors were too nice. Drip.

He remembered Kabuto's words to him when he invited Sasuke to see his latest experiment, a triumphant sinister look on his face, "Come on Sasuke-san, Orochimaru-sama gave me permission to show you level seven. I just want your comments on some situations, nothing bad." The white haired genin said flippantly. But the other ninja caught the gleam in his eye, and just followed; his curiosity was getting the better of him. He knew that it was probably going to be horrible, but he'd witnessed the Uchiha Massacre, and was subjected to gaze upon the deaths of his mother and father for seventy-two hours straight by his brother.

Over and over and over and over and over again. He can deal with this.

Orochimaru had given him clearance to see the inner workings of Sound. No one had ever seen the hard labors of Kabuto Yakushi that laid in wait on the eighth floor but Kabuto Yakushi himself. This has to be big, and the voice in his head was inquisitive. Drip, drip, drop.

The fourth floor must be saturated be blood, Sasuke thought, cynically. The stairs kept going down and down. He must be in a maze with numerous twists. Did people ever perish, wandering these halls with no way out, going mad, slowly? Are there skeletons of the dead and unlucky? He couldn't see any doors or entrances besides the stone walls that surround them. 'Look underneath the underneath,' Kakashi had told his team. He snorted and shook his head. His fingers were lightly tapping his kunai pouch; the thin and dry air around him was not helping to ease his mind. 'A ninja must always be on guard.'

The corridors, halls, and stairways were grand and dark; around five meters in width, the underground walkways were lit up by a ninja wire and lanterns, much like Konoha at night. He shook his head, 'don't think about that, don't think about that,' he had things to do, he was an avenger. He will kill his brother for his sins even if it kills him self in the process.

Drip. They were at the seventh floor; Kabuto tapped a finger coated in chakra against a stone. A door appeared. Hn, how many other doors can be created like this? Or was it just a genjutsu, he doesn't know, his sharingan wasn't on.

They walked through. The artificial lighting buzzed and flickered as it was turned on, casting a white glow that reflected off of Kabuto's glasses. The Uchiha saw machines that he couldn't recognize against the corners and three wide tables in the middle. By the tables were two bins, one was full of bones and bugs, 'flesh-eating', he concluded, and the other bin had clothes inside, a ninja vest, two Konoha hitai-ite laid on top, and two pairs of ninja sandals: the shoe sizes were both small, so they were probably girls. A cold shiver went down his spine, but he hid it. Kabuto began to tinker with a contraption that was in his blind spot. There were cylinder glass tanks lined up on each side that were empty. Wait, he walked towards the end of the room.

His eyebrows shot up into his forehead. What was Ino Yamanaka doing here?! He stared in disgust at the thick wires that were crudely taped to her forehead and her skull; her hair was shaven off completely, leaving her bald. More wires were attached to her neck and the area between her collarbones. A long tube also extended downward and expanded over her mouth, letting her breath. She was wearing a torn up shirt and shorts and looked dead, floating in a light green fluid. He glanced at a machine next to the holder, which showed numbers of different information on her vitals that flew by in rapid session.

What were they doing to her?

"Ah hah! Here she is!" came the gleeful voice of his companion. The dark haired boy spun around and stared. Kabuto carted out a pink haired, unconscious, girl that was clad in nothing but bandages, revealing to him all the wires attached to her: stomach, forehead, neck, checks, arms, shoulders, back, legs… that relayed data back to the machine that was under the stretcher. The stretcher stopped in front of him.

'Sakura' he startled. His hand moved, trembling, to touch her face, to convince himself that she was there. 'Why are you here? You shouldn't be here!'

"Pretty little thing isn't she?" He looked up sharply. Kabuto leered at the unconscious girl. "We picked her up with the help of Kana and brought her here. You won't believe what we found out after we did a brain scan on her."

He was still in shock, the older teenager's words barely registered to him, 'This wasn't supposed to happen. I was to leave Konohakagure behind; you aren't supposed to follow me! That was to be Naruto's job!'

"And guess what? She has DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder!" Kabuto rubbed his hands together in glee. "Concluding from the information I have received in Konoha, she switches her personalities under certain amounts of stress. As I may show you now, please pay attention to her chakra signature." He took out a kunai and calmly dragged it across her stomach: blood spilled out. With the sharingan out, Sasuke could faintly see the girl's chakra changed from light pink to almost white. She stirred, and woke up and stared at Kabuto unblinkingly, and Sasuke noticed how her face seemed for frail, and how her eyes were bigger and more sunken into her face. He bet that Sakura, if she was Sakura, could stare into the depths of his soul, seeing every single action that he ever did.

The genin's latest confrontation with his ex-teammate at the storage house had left him confused on who she really is. When, at the short period of time when he was under her Ichinichihenji no Jutsu, she had claimed that she was a part of Sakura; in that case, DID would sound like a reasonable conclusion. He hasn't heard much about the mental disorder though, only that it meant that there were multiple personalities in one single body. He wanted to know how many Sakura contains.

The Inner Sakura that he had seen at while trying to steal that scroll from that man from Ame was different from the Inner Sakura that he was seeing now. The other Inner Sakura, not the one in front of him, was more assertive, and with his sharingan, he now remembered, that her chakra was a darker pink, bordering red shade of color. Kabuto did not flinch under her uneasy gaze, but instead, he muttered, "That's one alter." He leaned over and smirked at her, "Do you have anything to say Sakura?"

Steely eyes stared back, the word "Snake," was whispered in a hoarse tone. A single word, uttered to show contempt toward her predators. She would've curled up in defense in response to her vulnerability but was unable to as her wrists and ankles were bounded tightly to the stretcher.

Kabuto grinned and let the tip of his kunai rest on her cheek, "Aww Sakura-chan, don't be like that. Or," He paused, "Is your name really Sakura?" She only glared back but he kept his musings. "What I don't understand is how an entire village of ninjas could've missed your mental disorder, Sakura-chan. That would lead me to think that you and your other alter had only recently been making strides at merging the minds." She didn't say anything but continued staring. "So I was right? Perhaps I should ask your other alter, I bet she'll be more inclined to talk." Green eyes widened.

A needle was whipped out and plunged into the forearm. Immediately, the white chakra was gone, and pinkish-red chakra emerged. During the transition, Kabuto began explaining, "I pumped her up with some morphine drugs and knock-outs that would take out the current mind that's in control of the body and bring out the inner subconscious, or in her case, I would think it to be her other alter. That's one of the reasons I brought you here, you had reported to Orochimaru-sama that the other 'part' of Sakura was louder and more confident than the original Sakura, I would like you to confirm this fact." Sakura began to stir once again, but the white-haired genin kept his eyes on his partner, "Don't worry Sasuke-kun. I made sure to test the cocktail on other people to make sure that there were no horrible side effects."

"Hn, I'm not worrying." Kabuto didn't reply, and turned his attention back to the girl.

"Hello Inner Sakura number two, are you more willing to talk your companion?"

She tugged on the binding and snarled viciously, "Fuck you and your fucking leader, and leave Youko out of this mess."

Sasuke recognized the new way his ex-teammate held her self, the self assurance that radiated off of her in waves. Yes, he was sure of it, "That's the inner personality I had met before."

Kabuto's eyes glittered, "Three personalities total Sasuke-kun, please remember that. One the main host, another is named Youko but we have no name on this one." He touched a chakra tipped finger toward her temple and Sakura's eyes closed. "Do you know what the new information can reveal? With a mind like hers, she can bypass any sort of genjutsu if her minds help her with it, she would have a, shall I say, affinity toward genjutsu itself. Think of all the possibilities that can happen?"

The black-haired boy refused to respond. The other continued his monologue, "This has been most unprecedented when I first came upon this phenomenon. No ninja ever had DID, only civilians. There was no cure, it was either the minds merged and the person would go crazy with the overload of information or the minds would continue to split until the conscious shattered. I wondered whether an additional amount of chakra influence the mind and be able to provide therapy and healing against DID? The Yamanakas specialized in mind jutsus and I have a hunch that their jutsus require them to be under the temporary affects of the Dissociative Identity Disorder. I would have to keep running tests on her."

He waved his kunai casually toward the almost forgotten blonde genin, "She also was brought here so that she can enter Sakura's mind under our control of course, and I would like you to monitor her progress and report anything interesting back to me."

'Sakura has three personalities in her…' Sasuke could have never guessed.

"Anyways, I just wanted to show you and prepare you for what's to come. You will be aiding me every two days for an hour and you will follow my instructions or suffer the consequences. Do you understand?"

The Uchiha glared back, "Hn." He grunted.

"Good, I'm glad that we have an understanding. Let's get back up."

It was to be a boring side job, in the Uchiha's opinion. But lately his opinion seemed to have moot point in his life.

Two days later, he entered the laboratory alone with his papers of instructions by the older genin: after checking the monitors, recording daily data and setting up the machines, he felt her stare from the other side of the room with her piercing green eyes. Her chakra signature was pinkish-red, "you were there… at the mission." She said, soft but amazingly coherent, Kabuto had assured him that she was drugged out of her mind. "You were there… at the mission where with that Ame aristocrat's vault. Do you remember?"

Yes he remembered: it was where he discovered her second alter… or was it third? He stared back onto the unflinching emerald eyes of his ex-teammate with his activated sharingan. "I made my first kill there on one of your people." She explained, "It smelled like fried brains, because I fried his brains, and it also smells like Chouji's BBQ. But I can't tell him that, you know, because it would be really rude of me to tell him something like that."

"And why are you telling me this?"

She looked up toward the ceiling, then turned her head sideways to match his gaze, "I was about to do the same thing to you, if Host hadn't froze in the middle of the battle and refused to kill you, I would've finished you off."

He snorted, "You don't have the skills to kill me."

She shrugged, modesty of the late was not on the top of her priority list, as show by the way she was unabashed at the fact that she was covered only in bandages around her chest and pelvic area. She talked in short bursts, "I had an eighty percent chance of hurting you; I could've killed you that day… But Host refused to kill you because she wanted to ask some questions to you. We used the Ichinichihenji no Jutsu instead: useless waste of chakra in my opinion, but she got to her goal none-the-less." She stared at him in the eyes, "Be thankful because right now, I wish that you were dead."

"You would've died by my hand." Her voice was hollow, and she shook her head slowly as she stared. "And you would've never known what hit you."

"_**What is Kakashi doing in our mindscape?"-Naiteki.**_

There was a pattern like beeping noise that grated on her ears, as it never stopped and hardly ever changed pace. But she got used to it. For the most part, Sakura thought that the only interesting thing right now was the fact that the voices that were surrounding her were shouting out numbers and orders. _'Where is Inner Sakura?' _She wanted everything to be over, because she can never seem to get out of her, well, is it called a coma if she's trapped in her body? She looks around

'Time has no meaning here,' she thought as she walked towards nothing. There was darkness and black. She could see nothing around her but the immediate ground around her. The ground was gray, she noted. She kept walking, the gray ground caught- up with her but the other than that, there was black, nothing but black, and the voices.

She twitched as another round of talking started around her. She figured that one of them sounded like Sasuke, which worried her because she would've never guessed that her obsession with the Uchiha went that deep. "Seventy-seven bpm." She puzzled over the monotonous voice, bpm? What's that?

If her subconscious voice sounded like her ex-teammate, she would need therapy if she ever got back to Konoha. She groaned, "Kidnapped. I don't believe it." She pinched herself and kicked the imaginary dust on the ground grumpily. One moment, it was a simple C-rank mission, the next moment, she was holding out against a huge number of Oto-nins, the next moment, there was black, the final moment; she was here, with no way out. She wasn't in a prison, since there was no way that Otogakure can be as big as to hold a prison that has no walls. Well, she paused in mid-step, if the prison was underground, and then there'll be unlimited space. Orochimaru, as the rumors went, was a bit tilted in the head, but then, she doesn't think Orochimaru would let her roam free for such a long time without even shackles.

Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, and walk.

"Where is the dobe now?" Sasuke asked in the darkness. The girl rubbed her temples. Some time ago, when she was getting used to the fact that she was trapped in some alternate reality, she heard Sasuke talk to, what she thought was her, so she had answered back. It had startled her when he started onto another topic. It was a very unusual experience, hearing her ex-teammate talk to him self.

'_It's the first sign of insanity_.' The strange thing was that he would sometimes directly hold a conversation with Sakura, but it wasn't her that was answering him, so she couldn't figure out what 'she' had said unless she concentrates on the context clues. The topics would be narrow, from Konoha to Oto, there was usually a trade in insults, taunts on her situation, questions on how it feels (how what feels? she doesn't feel any different), and about the remnants of Team 7. '_So, if it isn't me who is talking to Sasuke, then who is it?_'

"It doesn't hurt to ask, Sakura." There was a defensive hint to the voice. He referred to the mysterious other speaker as Sakura, which can't be right because she's Sakura. There can't be two Sakuras.

'_Whoever is talking to him_,' she grinned, '_sure has a sharp tongue_.'

Walk, walk, walk, and walk.

She figured it wasn't a genjutsu for the fact that she had tried the genjutsu release technique for a long time, one after the other, without tiring. That meant that she can't get chakra exhaustion, and the scrolls in the Konoha library never lie, you can't be under a genjutsu that makes you feel like you have unlimited chakra. She had used her Katon technique on the ground, but didn't get any results. The grey ground remained pristine and smooth. So ruling out the possibility of a genjutsu… wait a moment. A flash of pain at the side of her head, did she just say 'scrolls in the Konoha library never lie?' _'That can't be right,_' a frown appeared on her face, '_I never went to any Konoha library. I probably should've, it might've proved useful.' _Another flash of pain ran past her head. She decided that she will dismiss the strand of thought.

"Blood pressure is one-two-zero over sixty."

That was Sasuke again, and proof that she was sure that she was trapped in a coma. Apparently, he had been monitoring her vital statuses, which means that he has her body somewhere and she can't control it. Putting her thoughts together, that means that she's in her mind. A little part of her wishes that she was wrong, because if this is her mind, it's really empty. '_Really disappointing_. _I would've thought that there would be more stuff… like teddy bears._'

"Frontal lobe is not responding to stimuli." That was Sasuke again, which begs the question, what is he doing? Are the ninjas of Sound doing tests on her body?! A disturbing image came to her, there was artificial lighting and she was tied to the metal table with Sasuke standing over her, his eyes shining really brightly, clutching a scalpel and the lovechild of a screwdriver and a clamp, "Now relax, we just need a small sample of your brain. It'll all be over before you know it. This won't hurt a bit. Heh heh." The scalpel descended…

"AHHHHHHHH!" she clutched her head, eyes wide as dinner plates, "Not the forehead! Not the forehead! Not the fore-." She blinked, '_Oh. I'm ok._'

"So the medulla oblongata still shows that her body systems are fine and we're still seeing some color in the brain scan in parts of the parietal lobe, but we're not sure how aware she is." That was the second voice, the proof she has that Sasuke isn't part of her subconscious. The second voice sounds older, but isn't as deep as the Uchiha's voice, it sounded really familiar.

'_Deja-vu…_'

Wait, there was that kid they met at the beginning of the first examination of the chunin exams. A memory, "Geez, pipe down will you? You are all so loud." A white haired teenager said, pushing up his glasses. Didn't he also help Team 7 in the second examination? Kabuto Yakushi, he betrayed Konoha? He works with the snake? He's doing experiments on her body? Kabuto Yakushi, the guy who is still a genin? But… but…

"Look underneath the underneath." Another memory came, unbidden. Thank you, Kakashi-sensei.

The voices continued to talk about her mind and tests and objectives. She shook her fist angrily in the direction of the voices. "Shut up about my body!" She shouted, for the fiftieth-third time. But as always, the voices continued talking. Sometimes, she wished that she did heed Ino's advice and became a medic simply so that she can understand what Sasuke and the other voice was talking medical terms, simply so that she won't go mad with boredom.

Walk, walk, and walk.

"-perhaps a different sort of physical pain will do it. Sasuke-san, what do you think about fire?"

"Hn."

That's the thing; there is nothing to do around here. Since she found herself here, she has been wandering around in her coma mind trying to figure out what she can do. Reading from the fantasy and supernatural books that she had as a little kid, she tried to 'will' herself a chair; it didn't work, no matter how much she 'willed' it. Then, she tried to opening command the ground before her to move, but was met only with awkward silence. Then, she tried jutsus: didn't work (she should have fried the ground!). Finally, in all her frustrations, she stomped on the grey ground hard, but only managed to cause a minor shock go up her leg.

At last, she gave up.

Walk, run, run, and walk.

"-nobody understands, so don't think that you do. I have a goal to kill him; I have trained up to this point to kill my brother." Sasuke was talking to that other Sakura again. '_This is so surreal_,' she inwardly sighed, '_I don't even want to think how that makes sense to me._'

The debate with Sasuke had turned heated, and once again, it was about getting stronger and senseis and betrayal. "Because nobody else would train me! Kakashi-sensei's chidori didn't do anything. Orochimaru is a sannin and he made a chakra-bound promise that he wouldn't take over my body until I have achieved my purpose in life." If she heard it once, then she had heard it a million times. She can almost mouth the words along. Sure, she was aware of Sasuke's 'important' decision: to betray Konoha and his previous life or to not betray Konoha and his previous life, but it was no excuse to do what he did and hurt everybody, and her.

"No, no one in that weak village was willing to teach my anything useful. They had tried to slow me down, thinking of me as unstable due to my ambition."

"Shut up." Once again, the one sided conversation had grounded to a halt.

Sakura congratulated her self on taking all the recent events in stride and facing it with a calm and cool façade. '_I'm not panicking now. It might be that Kabuto and Sasuke had drugged me and the meds managed to bypass the darkness into me. Well, the shock of the absurdity of my situation will come to me sooner or later._'

There was nothing to do in her mind, absolutely nothing. She never sleeps, never needed to. She never tired, and was constantly wandering around, driven by a spark of hope in the back of her mind that if she walks far enough, she'll get to the end. ' _And then what?_'

Well…

"-Kabuto, not even deep physical wounds are triggering a response."

Walk, run, walk, run, walk, run, and walk.

A slightly irritated response was heard, "Then we'll just have to try harder. Aim for her lower stomach." They're stabbing her body to try and reach the objective, and she's not feeling anything. She should be outraged that she's getting mutilated, but she can't bring her self to care. "Again Sasuke." She thought it was because of a lack of a corporeal form, which she's out of touch with.

"Again." If she strains her ears, she can hear the sound of a knife piercing flesh in a squelching sound.

"Again."

Walk, walk, run, sit, run, and run.

The genin sniffed, '_I really wish Inner Sakura is here._ _At least with her around, my inner thoughts would be louder, punctuated with a loud, "Shannaro!"' _Inner Sakura was Sakura, a part of Sakura that was suppressed in order to make the outer Sakura more soft and feminine. If there was no Inner Sakura, she would be malleable on the inside and as well on the outside. Inner Sakura makes her thoughts more pronounced, and that gave her comfort. The correct metaphor would be that Sakura was a knife and Inner Sakura was the honed edge.

Except now, the green-eyed girl has no idea where Inner Sakura was anymore. Inner Sakura had been quiet of the late, and has only popped up to give advice to her. Now that's something, Inner Sakura never gives advices, or comments, or complaints. Sakura always thought that Inner Sakura was an extent of herself, therefore, with no independent mind, '_maybe it had manifested itself lately?_' Calling Inner Sakura a friend would be stretching it, but it was heading in that direction, at least, until she was kidnapped.

"-Careful Kabuto, senbons can worsen her death-like trance."

"I'm only targeting specific nerves. And how do you know about senbons?"

"…you shouldn't pierce her neck, it's too risky." There was a mild pause.

There was mild frustration. "Damn, nothing happened. I'm nearly at the end of my resources."

She wonders if Sasuke knew that he wasn't talking to Sakura, but somebody else. He must know, the 'Sakura' that he's speaking to isn't acting like her at all. He must know, he's just not mentioning anything. What if there's a conspiracy between him and the other 'Sakura'? The goal would be to keep her, the true Sakura, in the dark.

Forever.

Sit, run, run, run, run, walk, and run.

She can't tell time here, it has no meaning. It flows by, intangible and uncatchable in the world of emptiness, like somebody trying to hold water coming from a sink. She frequently asks herself, '_how long has it been since Team 10 left Konoha? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?_' In her mind, was she always going to look thirteen? That's the bad thing; she doesn't know how old she is right now. For all that, she could look twenty, and not know it. She hesitantly touched her face, no wrinkles, and then looked at herself, she didn't, thank kami, have a twenty year old body.

Sakura fretted. What can she do if she did have a twenty year old body in her mind? Would that mean that she's twenty, or would it mean that her mind had matured for a twenty year old? She closed her eyes. Wasn't that crazy proctor for the second exam twenty, or at least in her twenties? Another disturbing image came to her: she was wearing the same attire as the tokubetsu jounin, large jacket, a mini-skirt, and a see through mesh shirt leaving nothing for imagination. She was licking a bloody kunai…

Perish that thought.

She scratched the back of her head and sighed, she has no choice but to walk forwards, walk on and keep a mind to the voices. The girl hummed a song that she remembered hearing when little. It was going to be a long journey, and she was going crazy with boredom.

Walk, walk, and walk. _The stars are bright tonight._

_Home on the left and moon o__n the right, fighting with life. _Walk, walk, skip, run, walk, and sit.

Run, run, and run.

Time has no meaning in the mind. It was endless.

_I'm back from the fight__, won the game, seen the light, yeah I'm going home tonight._

Walk, run, run, and run.

Run, run, run… run… run…

Run… There has to be a way out of this mess. There just has to.

Run…

Run…

_Going home tonight._

Run… She was going crazy. It's an endless haze. She's probably have been running for days now.

Suddenly, Sakura felt the sensation of her skin being prickled by needles and gave a gasp of pain, arms instinctively coming up to wrap protectively around her. She fell forward on her knees and gritted her teeth, '_that really hurts._' The genin always had an ear to the conversation around her. She had caught them talking about electroconvulsive therapy and two thousand milliamps but didn't give it much thought, thinking that if Sasuke and Kabuto had tried everything from cutting, piercing, using Ino in some way, to burning her and they still haven't managed to achieve their objective, that's what they always call it, an objective, to bring about some activity in some part of her brain, paretal lobe…, then the electroconvulsive therapy would be useless. Apparently not.

She looked up and listened intently. "Electricity worked! Just there, did you see the monitor? For a brief second, those sections of the parietal lobe showed activity! Sasuke, I want another round, this time, add another two hundred milliamps and keep it up for three seconds."

And the prickling sensation came again, and this time, it was more painful, the metaphorical needles seemed to pierce deeper and seemed to have just been over the candle for half a minute. "Nnngh." She gritted her teeth as she bent over in pain, hugging her self, her hands were clutching her arms so hard they left red marks.

Sasuke's voice came through, "How interesting."

"Indeed, it is very exciting to make a breakthrough such as this. I wonder if she can hear us now, some parts of her senses must be working now. We must continue down this path." Sakura felt horror, "I want another two hundred milliamps and this time, you are to prolong it to seven seconds."

"How far are you going to take it?"

"The longest exposure I think we can afford to give her would be a minute, but I think as for the voltage of the shock: the sky's the limit." Kabuto mused.

And at that moment, Sakura knew that she was in hell.

"_**Monster, how far have you gone?"-Youko**_

Sasuke walked down the endless stairs and through the maze to see his ex-teammate again. After the revelation that electroconvulsive therapy works to stimulate key parts of Sakura's brain, Kabuto had work hard to bring out the 'original' Sakura into conscious and at the same time, under his control. Not that Sasuke cares, he calls all three Sakuras Sakura, because that's who they are, 'Youko' or not. His left hand held some sheets of paper revealing tables and numeric information, his right hand held a pen.

At first, he had been apprehensive with Kabuto's beliefs that enemies should be used to their full extent to benefit Orochimaru-sama, but it was the only way he learned medicinal arts, granted it was to try to 'change' Sakura's body and then 'change' it back to normal, but he was getting proficient in the use of the Shoshen no justu, or chakra scalpels. Orochimaru thought that it was amusing to see two ex-teammates from Konoha, one who betrayed and another who was kidnapped, to have a reunion under the not ideal circumstances. Sasuke's new sensei was a crazy old man with a crazy idea about immortality and experimentation, but he was a good sensei. The Uchiha was learning at a much faster rate than with his time in Konoha.

What Orochimaru want then, Orochimaru gets. He stepped into the laboratory, temporarily blinded by the white lights. At the other end of the chamber, as always, was Sakura, unconscious and bounded to the stretcher, with multiple lacerations and scars decorating her body due to the times when he just started to learn healing with chakra.

Yesterday, Kabuto had wanted him to use a genjutsu called Konjaku no Jutsu on Sakura, the louder alter, instead of Ino now, via Sharingan. The older genin wanted to see how she managed to split her mind into three sections and wanted to see her past life. Perhaps, there might be clues and secrets in the memories that the young girl holds. Both young men had coaxed the sub personality out into the open with veiled threats, and he promptly channeled chakra into his eyes.

"Sharingan!" He had said and grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. The green pupils gave way to black and he saw a woman with crazed green eyes and limp blonde hair. Her entire face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

She was holding a hammer that was angling downward. "I'll beat the demon out of you." She panted, "I swear I will!" The hammer was brought down and, _crrk_, cracked the solar plexus.

"AAAHHHHHHHH!!!" The genjutsu screeched to a halt. He looked at Sakura and realized that she wasn't the louder sub personality but that other one who called herself Youko. She was still screaming. He inwardly winced at the high pitch and cursed the laboratory's walls that made the scream echo. The girl was shaking her head side to side, eyes glassed and wide in horror.

'She must still be under the genjutsu.' He thought, 'but how? I stopped it!' He bent over her and tried to shake her out of her illusion. "Sakura! Sakura! Shut up!"

"No! No! No!" She chanted loudly, "No! No!" She roughly yanked at her wrists and ankles. She yanked again violently, as is getting herself to move her limbs was the only way to keep living. They began to bleed with result of friction and her blood flowed into her hands and into the stretcher. They dripped off of the stretcher.

"No! NO! NO!" She kept yanking. He cursed himself for not bringing a sedative as he held her arms down, but her legs kept moving. "NO! NO!" She was staring ahead, right at him, but she was seeing something else, past memories. He touched her head with a chakra coated finger, aiming to render her unconscious, "AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Her mental state was in total disarray, he can't find the switch, and he needs a sedative to inject her.

"Wake up!" Panic overcame his senses as the girl screamed again in pain. He can only hope that she might calm down or tire out before doing any more self-inflicting harm. He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at his eyes again. She was staring right through him, but that was enough. "Sharingan!"

The blonde woman reappeared with flecks of blood on her face. The hammer was brought down again, onto the soft stomach. "I banish the demon! I command you to leave this body!" The hammer landed on the stomach again with more force. "By Kami, I order you to leave this child, foul demon! Leave this child!" The hammer was engraved with the words 'kiyome', purity. The hammer was brought down again in a graceful arc. More blood spattered onto the woman's face that was showing pure glee.

There was another man in the background, tall and dignified, he didn't say a word.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" For the second time, he was thrown out of his own genjutsu. He looked down at the girl in front of him.

Her head was shaking side to side, faster now. "NO! NO! NO! NO MORE!!" Her whole body began to shake, the monitors on her heart started to show more energy. She moved in a fast ripple like motion, making thudding noises onto the stretcher. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her head fell limp, but her body was still convulsing as spasms rolled over her body in waves. The beeping noises in the background got faster and faster.

A needle pierced her neck, and immediately, she calmed down and closed her eyes. The monitor returned back to normal stats, the beeping was regular. There was silence, he looked discreetly to the side and saw a sleeping girl with her head lolled to the side. Blood dripped off of the stretcher. He could still hear the chanting echo off the walls, _"NO! NO! NO!"_ "Kabuto." He greeted.

"Thank god for specialized induced sleeping medicines, right? What was that?" An angered hiss responded, "Some sort of grand mal seizure? You could've caused permanent brain damage at the rate the computers were reporting at. What were you doing?"

The Uchiha shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was a hammer with 'kiyome' engraved into the side and a woman screaming to a demon. "_NO! NO! NO! NO!_" He whispered softly, "Exorcism."

Sasuke brought all of his thoughts back into the present. Yes, the girl had undergone a bloody and painful exorcism to get rid of some youkai, and what was he going to think about that. Sure, had been stunned at the horrible memories, but he can't do anything to her. It might've made his respect for her go up a notch, but she was still annoying to a big fault. He can't pity her at all, but he was sure that it would be a long time before Kabuto would let him near her again with the activated Sharingan.

The Uchiha pushed himself back into the present. "Heart rate is seventy-one bpm. Blood pressure is one-one-zero over sixty-five. Breathing is regular." Sasuke inspected her bandaged wrists, "No abnormal coloring on skin. No signs of infection." A quick glance at the monitors, "Brain activity is normal." 'I will not begin the usual electroconvulsive therapy until Kabuto comes,' He thought as he settled in for the silence and watched his charge.

'Who was that woman anyways? She had bright yellow hair, Sakura has pink hair, the man had brown hair, is she Ino's mom? No, the woman and Sakura had the same eyes.' Exorcism. 'The man and Sakura had the same facial characteristics.' Exorcism. He gingerly traced her brow with a thumb. They were her parents. What sort of parents would do this for their child? Was it a civilian sort of thing that he did not understand? They had implied of a demon possessing her body. Was the exorcism a success? Was the demon banished?

'Was there even a demon to begin with?'

He looked down; Kabuto was planning something special for her. Sasuke was asked to not bring out the other personalities into the body but to try and work with the older boy to bring forth the Host, as the loud 'Sakura' had called. Further research on DID by Sasuke revealed that there was the 'main' mind. The main mind, or the real Sakura, was the one personality that Kabuto still tries to bring out but had not yet accomplished. The white-haired teen was beginning to get really antsy.

What Kabuto plans to do when he meets the true Sakura was a mystery to the Uchiha. He heard footsteps and his head raised ever so slightly, "Hn." He nodded toward the medic-aspiring genin.

Kabuto used a single finger to adjust his glasses, "I've found a way to bring out the original Sakura, it is time we bring the Yamanaka out again."

"_**Oh Kami, no…"- Yamato, Konoha ANBU, in the mist of an undercover recon mission, after seeing the two Leaf-genin girls: a Yamanaka in a tank and his charge on a stretcher. He had heard the rumors around the ninja village, but didn't believe that they were true… experimented on... Kami, he feels sick. He won't be hearing from Konoha until his mission was complete, but he wonders how she was kidnapped. He has to save them, but how? He knows next to nothing, this wasn't a part of the mission; it was unknown territory, dangerous. No matter, he grew too fond of the girl, he's paid the price for letting anyone get close to him, and he can't stop himself: he'll find a way. He saw piles of charts, research, and observations on a nearby desk and started to read and plan.**_

Time has no meaning… Hum. "The stars are bright tonight, home on the left, moon on the right…" Hum.

Walk, walk, walk, walk and walk.

Hoarse voice (from screaming) and insanity (from pain).

Walk. "Ino? Is that you? …Ino!" Run. Hug. "Thank god, Ino! What are you doing here? What's going on?" Pause. "Ino? …Say something… Oh kami, please say something… Ino! Look at me! Ino!" Shake. "Why aren't you responding?" Slap.

"Ino!"

"This time, I want you to use your sharingan, Sasuke. As soon as I press this…"

Everything is dizzy. Indescribable pain that pierced her head like somebody is smashing it with a hammer. A hammer. There are voices in her head.

She's tied to a bed. "This is for your own good Sakura." The woman said.

She agreed. "Hai, okaasan."

Replay. "This is for your own good Sakura."

Why did she agree? "Hai, okaasan."

Replay. "This is for your own good Sakura."

"Hai, okaasan."

Okaasan…

A hammer. She remembers a blonde woman beating her stomach with a large hammer labeled 'kiyome'. Purity. "Vanquish foul demon! I order you to be gone!" The hammer rises and falls in a graceful arc, almost in slow motion, but Sakura knows that it's not, and it's painful, and it hurts so badly that her mind had split…

"Sasuke, I think its working."

A faded spiral and she steps into a room and stares. There are two other girls with her: one, young, blonde hair, green eyes, bruised and pale complexion, was sitting on a chair with her knees tucked under her chin; the other, her age, all black, with a white outline, who looked like a ghost with white pupils, who looked exactly like her, was standing up, staring at the pink haired girl with a strange expression.

She's sure that she's still in her mind. Sakura frowned, they looked familiar, but she can't tell from where. Are they from Konoha? She thought about asking, but opted to keep eyeing them warily; the other two girls didn't seem to be the mood for talking. But, the black girl looked exactly like her. The younger blonde girl wrinkled her nose in irritation and rubbed her circle rimmed eyes, but remained silent. Sakura had to break the silence, "W-who are you?" She stood up straighter, trying to act confident.

The black girl snorted, "Cha." The other hugged herself more closely.

'_Cha_.' Sakura pondered, that sounds familiar, almost like, well… '_It would be reasonable._' "…Inner Sakura?" She inquired. '_Wait, that wouldn't work. Inner Sakura is supposed to be me, a part of me. Not a separate… soul or personality! Are they part of my mind?! What's going on!?_' She looked back and forth.

That older girl's eyes widened in surprise. The young genin frowned, "You're separate minds. Who are you?" There was more tense silence, and this time, the green eyed genin stubbornly stayed silent.

"You." The blonde girl rasped.

She blinked, "Both of you are me?" '_What?_"

At this revelation, her world exploded in pain. The two girls disappeared and her world spun around her and flipped. It was blinding, and she couldn't scream because she refused to, already used to pain given by the electroconvulsive therapy. But this is even worse; she tumbled to the floor in an exhausted heap. This is even worse than the electric shocks. She could focus on nothing but the blinding pain that covered her and invaded her. Her cheek pressed the cool gray floor and she looked up, and gasped.

There was a pair of sharingan eyes, larger than life, glaring down at her with the three tomoes spinning around and around and around. Her world spun again.

She found herself strapped to a sort of soft table with a sort of artificial light temporarily blinding her and she blinked rapidly, adjusting her pupils to the brightness. A shadow moved above her to block the light. She blinked, "Uchiha, Sasuke?" She recognized his eyes. She noticed that he had grown more angular, the baby-fat from his cheeks were almost non-existent.

He was growing into a young man. He abandoned her.

She looked away and met an amused pair of eyes behind spectacles. "Kabuto." She stated clearly.

"You're the true Sakura, not the other two submissive personalities." The girl wrinkled her nose in confusion. The speaker brushed the gesture off, "We have a couple of questions for you."

A shot of anger passed through her. "I'm not answering them." She hissed back. The man smirked.

A red light flashed, both oto-nins looked up sharply as an alarm blared. "Intruders," Sasuke muttered.

Life pressed on the fast-forward button.

Her ex-teammate's eyes started spinning. There were shouts and footsteps above them. Sakura felt nauseous. A side wall blasted in and she choked on the dust. Kabuto started yelling, but his words went unheard. Trees suddenly grew from the tile floor. A man, Konoha ANBU, rushed in to her side. With one clean swipe of his sword, she was free. She hesitantly stood up and placed a hand on the stretcher. "Can you walk? Can you run?" He hurriedly asked her. Trees continued to grow in jerky movements.

She shook her head. "Sumimasen, Taka-san."

Glossary

Kage Kunai no Jutsu. B-rank. Shadow Kunai Technique. Not to be mistaken for the likes of Kage Shurinken no Jutsu. This is like the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu except with Kunais.

Baika no Jutsu. Multi-size Technique. Akimichi Clan.

Nikudan Sensha. C-rank. Human Bullet Tank. Akimichi Clan.

Cho Harite. B-rank. Mega-Palm Thrust. Akimichi Clan.

Konjaku no Jutsu. B-rank. Past and Present technique. User looks into the victims past. Usually, the memories are the ones that scar the most.

Sumimasen. Sorry.


End file.
